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CHARLES LAMB. 

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SELECTED ESSAYS 
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PREFACE 



My aim in the preparation of this edition has been 
to facilitate rapid and interested reading of such of 
the ^* Essays of Elia " as will most appeal to the aver- 
age student. Lamb's style, however, presents difficul- 
ties; and his vocabulary, drawn largely from his six- 
teenth and seventeenth century favorites, contains many 
obsolete words and archaic forms. I have endeavored, 
by means of footnotes, to smooth away all these diffi- 
culties, and to make the way still easier by thus ex- 
plaining many words and peculiarities of diction that 
do not fall under the classification named. For it is un- 
doubtedly true that much of the interest which a course 
in Lamb ought to rouse in young readers will be crushed 
if free and rapid reading of the text be hampered by 
the obscurities of Lamb's style and language. If it is 
urged that the '' dictionary habit " will not be formed 
where so much of this work is done for the student, I 
may reply that the notes are sufficiently few and Lamb 's 
vocabulary is sufficiently large to afford ample oppor- 
tunity for training in the use of the dictionary; and 
that more important than the '^ dictionary habit '' is 

V 



vi PEEFACE 

the desirability of loving '' the gentle Charles," and 
forming a taste for his quaint and incisive style. 

I have also included as footnotes brief explanations 
of Lamb's less important allusions — allusions which the 
well-read student need not master, but which he should 
understand in order to get a clear grasp of the subject- 
matter. 

In a separate group at the back of the book are 
explanatory notes on those allusions which seem to 
me important, whether intrinsically or because of the 
context; and these the student should make his own. 
Not the least value which Lamb presents as an author 
for school study is the compelling stimulus of his im- 
mense range of reading. His illustrative allusions and 
quotations are almost coextensive with literature itself; 
and to follow him at all, the student must inform him- 
self with regard to many of these. This should be made 
a pleasure, not a burden; for Lamb's allusions are al- 
ways so apropos, never '' dragged in by the heels," 
as Lamb said was the case with some puns, that inter- 
est in mastering them need never flag. A student 
cannot lay aside his text at the end of the course, if 
he has done his work at all well, without being im- 
mensely broader in general information and culture. I 
have aimed throughout, in view of the decadence of 
classical study in many schools, to make the notes suf- 
ficiently full in the case of every allusion to mythology. 
I believe a special point should be made of stimulating 
interest in these allusions. 



PKEFACE vii 

Quotations exact, quotations inexact, and mere frag- 
ments of random recollections are all found on every 
page of the essays. The temptation of every editor 
is, of course, to trace all these to their source. In the 
main, no good can be gained by burdening a school text 
with the sources of many quotations, save where the 
source would, in all probability, be known to the stu- 
dent. I have endeavored to let this criterion be my guide 
in deciding, in general, when to cite original passages. 
Most direct quotations, however, I have traced to their 
sources ; depending, where my own memory or informa- 
tion was deficient, upon Ainger and Lucas, whose schol- 
arship has supplied many a recondite allusion. 

Nearly all teachers require the student to reproduce 
his impressions of the books he has read. This practice 
conduces to more faithful and retentive reading, and 
will not, when rightly guided, kill interest in the liter- 
ature studied. Where teachers are preparing students 
for the college examinations, constant practice in theme 
writing on subjects taken from the literature is, of 
course, essential. Lamb's essays are so discursive, and 
many of them are so lacking in unity, that in most cases 
the titles of the essays themselves do not afford suffi- 
ciently suggestive titles for short class-room themes. 
There has been prepared, therefore, a list of suggested 
topics for written work, in which the principal points 
of each essay are made titles for short themes. 

In preparing this edition I have, as has every other 
editor of Lamb, been under deepest obligation to the 



viii PKEFACE 

work of Canon Ainger, whose edition of Lamb's works 
and whose unequaled biography are testimony to the 
most painstaking labor. Of the newer editions I have 
had constantly by me for consultation the admirable 
edition of E. V. Lncas. This must be considered the 
definitive edition of Lamb's works. Of the editions of 
the ** Essays of Elia/' that by Messrs. Hallward and 
Hill is most fully annotated, and I am indebted to it 
for many helpful suggestions. No editors have so 
cleverly run down many of Lamb's half -quotations and 
remote allusions. 

I am indebted to Prof. Fred N. Scott, of the Uni- 
versity of Michigan, and to Dr. J. A. Lester and Mr. 
F. W. Pine, of the Hill School, for helpful suggestions. 
To Messrs. G. P. Putnam's Sons, I am indebted for 
permission to reprint from Lucas' edition, above re- 
ferred to, the map of the Temple. H. B. 

The Hill School, 
June, 1910. 



CONTENTS 



-\ 



PRINCIPAL WORKS OF CHARLES LAMB 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 

INTRODUCTION 

The Life of Charles Lamb 

Lamb's Appearance and Personality . 

The Essay ...... 

Lamb as an Essayist: The Quahties of His Art 

Mary Lamb ...... 

The Inns of Court ..... 
TOPICS FOR WRITTEN WORK 
LAMB'S KEY . . . . 

ESSAYS 

si I. The South Sea House 

II. Christ's Hospital Five-and-Thirty Years 

III. The Two Races of Men 

IV. New Year's Eve 
*^ V. A Chapter on Ears . 

VI. A Quakers' Meeting 

VII. My Relations . 

VIII. Mackery End, in Hertfordshire 

IX. Imperfect Sympathies 

\X. The Old Benchers of the Inner Temple 

XL Witches and Other Night-Fears 

XII. Grace Before Meat 

XIII. Dream-Children: A Reverie . 

XIV. Distant Correspondents . 

ix 



Ago 



PAGE 

xi 
xii 



XV 

xxix 

xxxiv 
xxxvi 

xli 

xliii 

xlviii 

lii 

1 

14 

34 

43 

53 

63 

71 

81 

89 

102 

119 

129 

140 

146 



CONTENTS 



^ XV. The Praise of Chimney-Sweepers 

^VI. A Dissertation Upon Roast Pig 

. XVII. A Bachelor's Complaint of the Behaviour of 
Married People 

XVIII. Modern Gallantry . 

XIX. Old China 

XX. Poor Relations 

XXI. The Old Margate Hoy 

XXII. Blakesmoor in H shire 

XXIII. The Superannuated Man 

NOTES 



PAGE 

155 
166 



177 
187 
194 
203 
212 
223 
231 
243 



THE PRINCIPAL WORKS OF 
CHARLES LAMB 

(Arranged Chronologically) 

1794. Sonnet on Mrs. Siddons (earliest published work). 

1796. Sonnets (published with Coleridge's poems). 

] 798. Rosamund Gray. The Old Familiar Faces. 

1802. John Woodvil. Ballads. 

1803. Hester. 

1805. Farewell to Tobacco. 

1806. Mr. H. 

1807. Tales from Shakespeare (with Mary Lamb). 

1808. Adventures of Ulysses. Specimens of English Dramatic 

Poets Contemporary with Shakespeare. 

1809. Mrs. Leicester's School (with Mary Lamb). Poetry for 

Children (with Mary Lamb). 

1811. The Genius and Character of Hogarth. 
Contributions to the Reflector. 

1818. Complete Works, in two volumes (Olhers). 

1820-3. Essays of Elia, in the London Magazine. 

1823. Essays of Elia, first series (Taylor and Hessey). 

1823-6. Essays for the London, and other magazines. 

1828. Popular Fallacies, in the New Monthly. 

1830. Album Verses (Moxon). 

1833. Essays of Elia, second series (Moxon). 

xi 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 



Lamb's Works: 

The Works of Charles Lamb, edited by Alfred Ainger. 

Macmillan & Co. . (Eversley Edition.) 
The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, edited by E. V. 

Lucas. G. P. Putnam's Sons. 
The Works of Charles Lamb, edited by William Mac- 

DONALD. London: J. M. Dent & Co. 

Biographical : 

Charles Lamb, by x4lLFRed Ainger (English Men of Letters 
Series). 

The Life of Charles Lamb (in preparation), by E. V. Lucas. 
G. P. Putnam's Sons. 

The Letters of Charles Lamb, with a Sketch of his Life (in 
reprints), by T. N. Talfourd. 

The Final Memorials of Charles Lamb (in reprints), by T. 
N. Talfourd. 

Sidelights on Charles Lamb, by Bertram Dobell. Charles 
Scribner's Sons. 

Charles Lamb; a Memoir, by B. W. Procter (Barry Corn- 
wall). 

Dictionary of National Biography, 

Works containing interesting material regarding Lamb : 

Autobiography, Leigh Hunt. 
Literary Reminiscences, by Thomas Hood. 
De Quineey's Works, Vol. V. 
Autobiography and Journals, Haydon. 
Diary, Henry Crabb Robinson. 

The Works of William Hazlitt, and Memoirs of William Haz- 
litt, by W. Carew Hazlitt. 
xii 



BIBLIOGRAPHY xiii 

Reference Books for Use in Reading the Essays : 
Smith's (or some other) Classical Dictionary. 
Gayley's Classic Myths, 
Shakespeare's Works. 
Words and their Ways in English Speech, 
Hogarth's Works. 

Macdonald's Edition of Essays of Elia (for the illustra- 
tions). 
Lucas's edition of Essays of Elia (for the notes). 



INTRODUCTION 

THE LIFE OF CHARLES LAMB 

The life of Lamb combines so many seemingly con- 
tradictory elements that it challenges our interest at 
once; for it is a life filled with the heroic and the 
pathetic, the tragic and the comic; a life crowded 
with disappointments, but lighted by the sunniest of 
dispositions; a life filled with human weaknesses, but 
crowned with the noblest of self-sacrifice. It may be 
urged that all lives combine these elements to some 
degree; but in Lamb's case these contradictory phases 
stand out in their extremes. 

Let us take a glimpse at the actual facts of Lamb's 
life, and then go back to gather up the threads of it, 
and see to just what extent his life did exhibit these 
seemingly irreconcilable characteristics which have been 
mentioned. 

I. Birth and Early Life (1775-1782).— Charles Lamb 
was a city child. His father, John Lamb, who had come 
to London a country boy to seek his fortune, was clerk 
and general assistant to Samuel Salt, a lawyer. Like all 
London lawyers. Salt had chambers in one of the Inns 
of Court,^ in a building known as Crown Office Row, 
Inner Temple.^ Here, at No. 2, in the very heart of 
London, Charles Lamb was born on. February 10, 1775. 

1 See page xliii of the Introduction. 

2 See map on page xlvi. 

XV 



XVI 



INTKODUCTION 



He was the youngest of seven children, only three of 
whom, however, survived the period of early childhood. 
The other two, of whom we shall hear much, were 




No. 2 Crown Office Row. 
Lamb's Birthplace. 

John Lamb, Jr., and Mary Lamb, the former twelve 
and the latter ten years older than Charles. 

Charles Lamb was born to poverty. His father's 
position paid well enough, but the demands on his in- 
come were great, and the family seems always to have 
been in a state of financial embarrassment. To the 
boy, however, these early cares and struggles probably 
meant nothing. He was busy in and out among the 
cloisters, gardens, and fountains of the Inner Temple,^ 
and was occupied by his early schooling under Mr. 
Bird in Fetter Lane. Mr. Bird's was a day school for 
boys and a night school for girls, whose advantages 
Mary Lamb shared, therefore, with her brother, al- 
though Lamb says he is sure that neither of them ever 
brought anything away from the school but a little of 
their native English. 



" The Old Benchers of the Inner Temple," page 102, 



INTRODUCTION 



xvu 



11. Life at Christ's Hospital (1782-1789).'— At seven 
years of age Lamb went from the ancient Inner Temple 
to the ancient '' Blue-coat School," Christ's Hospital, 
passing thus from ^ ' cloister to cloister ' ' ; for both these 
old groups of buildings were originally monasteries. 

His early days at Christ's w^ere trying ones. His im- 
pressions of them Lamb has himself recounted with 
sufficient fullness in the essay '^ Recollections of Christ's 
Hospital Five-and-thirty Years ago " ^ : how the boys 
dined in the great hall, fared forth on holidays to the 




Supper at Christ^s Hospital. 



country or the Tower, frolicked through their lessons 
under mild Dr. Field, and tremblingly conned their 
Greek and Latin under the birch of rabid Dr. Boyer. 
In the essay " New Year's Eve," Lamb recalls fleeting 
impressions of his childhood at Christ's;^ and in the 

1 See essay on " Christ's Hospital," page 14. 

2 See page 15ff. 3 See page 45. 
2 



xviii INTRODUCTION 

essay *^ Witches and Other Night Fears/ ^ he conjures 
up again the fearful images that visited his motherless 
pillow.^ 

His was a slight, shy figure, not assertive nor forward. 
His ability to make friends was handicapped by his 
habit of stammering; but those who grew to know 
him loved him. Gentle is the adjective that best de- 
scribed him then, and that clung to him in later life; 
and Charles Valentine Le Grice recalls that a certain 
peculiar fondness for the boy was evidenced at Christ's 
in their always speaking of him as Charles Lamb, never 
omitting the Christian name, though custom decreed use 
of the surname only. 

The friendship between Lamb and Coleridge, who 
were fellow-students at Christ's, w^as the natural up- 
springing of a boyish regard, founded on mutual in- 
terests. Each was bookish ; each was inclined to dreami- 
ness and abstraction. Coleridge, who was three years 
Lamb's senior, exercised the stronger influence, and 
soon had completely dominated Lamb's sensitive mind. 
Together the boys talked, speculated, read the classics, 
and pored over Bowles's sonnets, the first great poet- 
ical influence in both their lives. 

At Christ's Hospital Lamb laid the foundation for 
that long course of self-education which was to fol- 
low. He rose to be Deputy-Grecian (next to the highest 
class), being especially proficient in Latin composi- 
tion. He w^ould naturally have gone on to one of the 
universities; but it was expected that those who did 
should prepare for the ministry, and this Lamb's habit 
of stammering precluded. Furthermore, the boy was 
needed at home that he might contribute somewhat to 

1 See page 124. 



INTKODUCTION xix 

the support of the family, for John Lamb'^ mind was 
gradually failing, and the family was seriously embar- 
rassed financially. And so, in 1789, Lamb passed out 
from the cloisters of Christ's Hospital and faced the 
future, the clouds of which were already hanging low. 

III. Time of "Storm and Stress" (1789-1796).— The 
time was now at hand when Charles Lamb was to show 
the stuff of which he was made, for during the next 
seven years came the trials that w^ere to test his char- 
acter : the necessity, at fifteen, of going to work to buoy 
up the ebbing fortunes of his family, disappointed 
hopes in love, a period of insanity, and, finally, the 
death of his mother at the hand of Mary Lamb. 

In 1789, or soon after, Charles Lamb obtained an 
introduction to the South Sea House through his brother, 
John, who held a good appointment there. A minor 
clerkship for the younger brother resulted — as far as 
the records show the only benefit of whatsoever sort 
that Charles ever received from John. John Lamb, 
though an able accountant, seems never to have felt 
the burden of any responsibility. While the family was 
suffering in poverty, owing to the father's decaying 
powers, and while Mary Lamb was taking in sewing, 
John was absent in bachelor quarters,^ enjoying life 
and spending his income. He thus idly bequeathed to 
his younger brother the responsibilities that should have 
belonged to the older by right of primogeniture, and 
Charles, then as later, uncomplainingly took up the 
burden. The South Sea clerkship lasted until 1792, 
w^hen Lamb received a more lucrative appointment in 
the East India House. In the meantime his social re- 



1 For Lamb's account of his brother, whom he calls James 
Elia in the essays, see pages 73-80. 



XX INTRODUCTION 

laxations were taken with Coleridge and James White/ 
talking of literature and dreaming of authorship ; and 
he spent an occasional holiday with his grandmother 
Field at Blakesware, in Hertfordshire. ^ On one of the 
visits to this place, which he has so charmingly described 
in one of his essays,^ he met Ann Simmons, the '' Alice 
Winterton ' ' of the essays.* 

Lamb has told us a little, in his veiled way, of his 
feeling for this fair-haired girl. How far his passion 
took possession of him, whether he ever spoke his heart 
or not, whether she in any way returned his affection — 
these questions will never be answered. We do know 
that by 1796 the understanding between them, if 
any, was broken off; and in this year Lamb, yielding 
to the hereditary taint, lost his reason, and spent six 
weeks in an asylum in Hoxton. 

In September of this same year came heavier trou- 
ble. The family, in desperate financial straits, had re- 
moved from their old quarters in the Temple to Little 
Queen Street. Mrs. Lamb was a confirmed invalid ; Mr. 
Lamb, like Lot of Orkney, beside the hearth lay '' like 
a log, and all but smoulder 'd out ''; Charles had been 
absent at Hoxton; and the burden of it all fell upon 
Mary. Her reason too gave way; and, in a sudden 
passion of murderous insanity, she seized a knife from 
the table and stabbed her mother to death. She also 
wounded her father in the head, but Charles was by to 
prevent more bloody execution. This terrible tr^^edy 

1 James, or Jem. White is referred to on pages 154. 162-165. 

2 This is the Norfolk of the essay, " Dream-Children," page 140. 

3 The essay " Blakesmoor in H shire," in the second series 

of the " Essays of Elia." See page 223. 

4 See pages 44, 50, and the whole of the essay, " Dream-Chil- 
dren," on page 140. 



INTEODUCTION xxi 

was enough to have sent Charles again to the mad- 
house ; but, strange to say, it had the opposite effect. He 
says in a letter to his constant correspondent, Coleridge, 
written in that same week: '' God be praised, Cole- 
ridge, -wonderful as it is to tell, I have never once been 
otherwise than collected and calm; ... On that first 
evening, my aunt lying insensible, to all appearance 
like one dying — my father, with his poor forehead 
plastered over, from a wound he had received from a 
daughter dearly loved by him, who loved him no less 
dearly — my mother a dead and murdered corpse in 
the next room — ^yet was I wonderfully supported. ' ' 

But what was to be done with Maryl She was at 
once put in confinement, but soon recovered her reason — 
was restored '^ to a dreadful sense and recollection of 
Avhat had past.'' Despite her acquittal by a jury and 
the restoration of her reason, John Lamb, Jr., advo- 
cated her confinement, fearing a return of the madness, 
and being unwilling to stand sponsor for her in case 
of her release. Charles saw his duty in a different light, 
and entered into a formal contract to guard and sup- 
port his afflicted sister. The older brother lent neither 
his approval nor his financial assistance. John Lamb, 
Sr., died a few months later; the old aunt followed 
within a few weeks; and thus it was that these two 
alone faced a future black with insanity, poverty, and 
isolation. For though Charles never had another at- 
tack of insanity, Mary frequently succumbed. ^^ The 
attacks seemed to have been generally attended with fore- 
warnings, which enabled the brother and sister to take 
necessary measures, and a friend of the Lambs has re- 
lated how on one occasion he met the brother and sis- 
ter, at such a season, walking hand in hand across the 
fields to the old asylum, both bathed in tears.'' 



XXll 



INTRODUCTION 



During this period Lamb published his first poetry 
— four sonnets in Coleridge 's volume, ' ' Poems on Vari- 
ous Subjects/' in 1796, and, somewhat earlier, a son- 
net on Mrs. Siddons, the tragic actress, published in 
the Morning Chronicle, During a lucid interval at 
Hoxton he wrote the beautiful sonnet to Mary Lamb, 
full of admiration and brotherly affection. He was 
longing with all the intensity of young genius to make 
his way in authorship, but disappointment awaited him. 

IV. Period of East India Clerkship (1796-1825).— 
Four years before, in 1792, Lamb had obtained his ap- 
pointment in the East India House. The position paid 
about $300 in our money at the beginning, the salary 




The East India House. 

gradually increasing to about $3,500. He now, in 1796, 
after the periods of absence caused by his own insanity 
and the family tragedy, addressed himself to his labors 
as the sole, and altogether insufficient, support of his sis- 
ter and himself. He became the '' notched and cropt 
scrivener,'' bound to the detested desk during the day, 
and hurrying home at night for a revel with his ' ' folios, 
his midnight darlings." 



INTEODUCTION xxiii 

For Lamb early became an inveterate reader, and 
especially a reader of old books — the neglected plays of 
the pre-Elizabethans and the contemporaries of Shake- 
speare and Ben Jonson, the works of Sir Thomas 
Browne, Fuller, and others. And as he read he wrote, 
first more poems with Coleridge, and, in 1798, a little 
romance, ^* A Tale of Rosamund Gray and Old Blind 
Margaret." The tale is intensely personal in many of 
its qualities, a brother and a sister in the story exhib- 
iting relationships very like his and Mary's. In this 
same year Lamb wrote his most famous poem, " The 
Old Familiar Faces.'' 

In the meantime Charles and Mary were living their 
life together, into which came some pleasure and much 
pain. The pleasures came in various ways, not always 
without alloy. In 1800, while living at Pentonville, 
Lamb had seen Hester Savary, a young Quakeress, come 
and go. He never spoke to her in his life, but she 
stirred his heart as no one save Ann Simmons had ever 
stirred it. One day Lamb missed her in his accus- 
tomed walks: she was dead. Then followed his lovely 
lyric, beginning, 

" When maidens such as Hester die 
Their place ye may not well supply, 
Though ye among a thousand try 
With vain endeavor." 

Then there were visits to Coleridge, in which Lamb 
took great delight; and pleasure came, too, in a grow- 
ing acquaintance, largely due to Coleridge, with men 
of literature, famous .or destined to become so : Godwin, 
Leigh Hunt, Wordsworth, Southey, and later, Keats, 
Haydon, De Quincey, and Hazlitt. Delightful to guests 



xxiv INTKODUCTION 

and hosts alike were Charles's and Mary's Wednesday 
evening parties, which began in 1806. To these came 
the most famous literary men of England as to a salon, 
to eat cold roast beef and potatoes, play whist, and talk 
of literature as only those men could talk. 

The painful experiences of these days were largely 
the result of Mary's recurrent attacks, and of the in- 
conveniences attending them. To quote Lamb's own 
words, they two '^ in their life of dual loneliness " be- 
came *^ shunned and marked." This ^^ murderess," 
who had to be led off to the asylum periodically, and 
this brother, himself once an inmate, were not very 
desirable tenants. In 1800 they were forced to change 
their lodgings twice, finally removing to 16 Mitre Court 
Buildings, in the Temple, where they were glad to be 
again amid old scenes. Poverty, too, brought them much 
worry. But worse than the poverty were the fits of de- 
pression from which they both suffered. Mary Lamb 
wrote to a friend : ' ' When I am pretty well his low 
spirits throw me back again ; and when he begins to get 
a little cheerful, then I do the same kind office for him. ' ' 

Wedded to these afflictions were Lamb's constant dis- 
appointments at failing to gain recognition through year 
after year of literary activity. Little return in money 
and none in reputation came as the result of his evenings 
of patient toil. The disappointments were repeated and 
bitter. ^Jn no less than four fields of literary enterprise 
were Lamb's ambitions blighted. '^ Rosamund Gray " 
had brought him little or no recognition as a writer of 
fiction. From 1800 to 1803 he tried journalism, writing 
squibs '^ at sixpence a joke " for the Post^ the Chronicle^ 
and the Albion, and failing alike of fame and fortune in 
the attempt. In 1802 he tried dramatic authorship, and 
wrote '^ John AVoodvil," a five-act drama in blank verse. 



xxvi INTEODUCTION 

He managed to find a publisher, but no manager would 
produce the crude first effort. In 1806 his second effort, 
'^ Mr. H./^ a farce, was hissed off the boards at Drury 
Lane Theater, Lamb himself, so it is said, joining from 
his box in the general evidence of public disfavor. The 
disappointment was intense; the loss of the needed 
funds was even worse. And yet again he failed, for 
his poetry was little read and not at all appreciated, 
the earlier work with Coleridge and the '^ Ballads '' of 
1802 bringing their author nothing of public recognition 
and no funds. 

But it was not all failure. In 1807 the brother and 
sister published jointly the now famous '' Tales from 
Shakespeare. ' ' The book went into a second edition the 
following year, and brought Charles a commission to 
write tales from the ^^ Odyssey '' for children. The 
book was published in 1808 as ' ' The Adventures of Ulys- 
ses. ' ' While doing these pieces of hack work for money, 
he had been at work on a task more congenial. This 
same year, 1808, appeared his volume, ^' Specimens of 
English Dramatic Poets Contemporary with Shake- 
speare." In this he had collated typical scenes from the 
plays of the now famous but then unknown contempo- 
raries of Shakespeare, to each selection appending a crit- 
ical note of his own writing. Upon this volume and 
upon his critique on ' ' The Genius and Character of Ho- 
garth " (1811) rests Lamb's fame as a critic. 

The story of the next few years is soon told : days of 
drudgery at his desk, evenings of reading and writing 
at home, or of social relaxation (too often '' smoky and 
drinky," as Mary said) with friends abroad, or an even- 
ing at the theater with Mary. The Wednesday night 
parties were now famous. Much company came and 
went. Several times the brother and sister moved; in 



INTKODUCTION xxvii 

1809 to Chancery Lane/ and thence the same year to 
No. 4 Inner Temple Lane; in 1817 to Great Russell 
Street, and in 1823 to Colebrook Row, Islington. Dur- 
ing all this time Mary Lamb, still a victim of her period- 
ical mania, would be absent for weeks at a time, and the 
brother would be left desolate. 

The year 1818 was marked by the first collected edi- 
tion of Lamb ^s works, published, in two volumes, by the 
Messrs. Oilier. Two years later (1820) occurs a date of 
even more importance. In August of that year he made 
his first contribution to the new London Magazine 
under the guise of " Elia,'' the essay being the first in 
this volume, entitled " The South-Sea House.'' Essays 
appeared in nearly every succeeding number, and 
** Elia '' began speedily to reap the reward of fame 
that had long been denied Lamb in his own name. 
These essays were gathered together and published in 
1823. 

The year of publication of the ' ' Essays of Elia ' ' was 
marred by Lamb's unfortunate controversy with 
Southey.^ About this time, also, the Lambs adopted a 
young girl, Emma Isola, whom they met at the home of 
a friend in Cambridge. She was the daughter of an 
Italian refugee, who had settled in Cambridge as a 
teacher of languages. Charles and Mary were ' ' Uncle ' ' 
and ' ' Aunt ' ' to her, and she made her home with them 
until she married Mr. Moxon, the publisher, in 1833. 
Emma Isola was increasingly a source of comfort to 
Charles as Mary's absences became more frequent and 
protracted. 

1 For these locations see map on page xxv. 

2 See note prefacing essay, " Witches and Other Night Fears," 
page 269. For a fuU account of the controversy, see Ainger's 
" Life," Chapter VII. 



..v^ 



xxviii INTKODUCTION 

V. "The Superannuated Man" (1825-1834).— Lamb 

had grown desperately tired of office confinement. Let- 
ters to his friends exhibit a weariness almost tantamount 
to illness. To Wordsworth he wrote, in 1822 : * ' I grow 
ominously tired of official confinement. Thirty years have 
I served the Philistines, and my neck is not subdued to 
the yoke. ... I sit like Philomel all day (but not sing- 
ing)^ with my heart against this thorn of a desk.'' 

That he should be permitted to retire from active 
service on a pension was more than he dared to hope. 
^ ^ that I were kicked out of Leadenhall - with every 
mark of indignity, and a competence in my fob ! " he 
cried in a letter to Barton. Finally, in March of 1825, 
he let the directors know that he would be glad to be 
relieved of his duties. After weeks of impatient wait- 
ing, he was called into the Directors' Parlor, w^as for- 
mally pensioned off on two thirds his salary, left the 
Leadenhall Street offices, and '' went home — forever."^ 

Charles Lamb w^as now free to devote himself wholly 
to writing. It is not strange, how^ever, that we have 
from him in these last years no more and no better 
work than he had previously done. * ' When deliverance 
from the necessity of toil came," says Ainger, '' he 
could not altogether resist the baneful effects of ' un- 
chartered freedom' and ' the weight of chance desires.' 
And we may be sure we should not have had more, but 
fewer ' Essays of Elia,' if the daily routine of different 
labor had been less severe or regular." 

1 Philomel, daughter of the king of Athens, was changed into 
a nightingale. This bird is said to sing with a thorn in her 
breast to make her song the sweeter. 

2 Leadenhall, the street in London in which the East India 
House is situated. 

3 See " The Superannuated Man/' page 231. 



INTRODUCTION xxix 

Lamb wrote for the London until it suspended 
publication in' 1826. He contributed '' Popular Falla- 
cies '' to the New Monthly Magaziyie, and did some 
compilation for Hone. With the completion of the last 
essays of '' Elia, " published in book form in 1833, his 
work was practically done. In 1827 he had removed to 
Enfield; in 1833 he went into lodgings at Edmonton. 

In July of the next year Coleridge died. Ainger tells 
the rest in a brief phrase : ' ' There is a touching fitness 
in the circumstance that Charles Lamb could not longer 
survive his earliest and dearest friend — that, trying it 
for a little while ' he liked it not — and died.' Ou the 
27th of December, murmuring in his last moments the 
names of his dearest friends, he passed tranquilly out of 
life. On the following Saturday his remains were laid 
in a deep grave in Edmonton churchyard, made in a 
spot which, about a fortnight before, he had pointed out 
to his sister, on an afternoon wintry walk, as the place 
where he wished to be buried.'' 

Mary Lamb survived her brother thirteen years — a 
tragic circumstance, considering her dependence upon 
him — though kindly fate now seldom granted her 
periods of reprieve in Avhich to mourn her loss. Her 
time was almost wholly spent in the asylum. 

lamb's appearance and personality 

Shortly after Lamb's death, his friend Talfourd re- 
corded impressions of his appearance : ' ' Methinks I see 
him before me now, as he appeared then, and as he con- 
tinued with scarcely any perceptible alteration to me, 
during the twenty years of intimacy which followed, and 
were closed by his death. A light frame, so fragile that 
it seemed as if a breath would overblow it, clad in clerk- 
like black, was surmounted by a head of form and ex- 



XXX INTKODUCTION 

pression the most noble and sweet. His black hair 
curled crisply about an expanded forehead; his eyes, 
softly brown, twinkled with varying expression, though 
the prevalent feeling was sad; and the nose, slightly 
curved, and delicately carved at the nostril, with the 
lower outline of the face regularly oval, completed a 
head which was finely placed on the shoulders, and gave 
importance and even dignity to the diminutive and 
shadowy stem. Who shall describe his countenance, 
catch its quivering sweetness, and fix it forever in 
words ? There are none, alas, to answer the vain desire 
of friendship. Deep thought, striving with humor; the 
lines of suffering wreathed into cordial mirth; and a 
smile of painful sweetness, present an image to the mind 
it can as little describe as lose. His personal appear- 
ance and manner are not unfitly characterized by what 
he himself says in one of his letters to Manning, of Bra- 
ham, ' a compound of the Jew, the gentleman, and the 
angel.' '' 

Talfourd, in attempting to draw a picture of Lamb's 
personal appearance, has, unwittingly it would seem, 
pictured something of the personality of the man — 
something of that character made up of the contradictory 
principles already spoken of — a life that combined in 
one, extremes of the heroic and the pathetic, the tragic 
and the comic; a life that met more than its share of 
disappointments, yet remained sweet; a life humanly 
weak, in many of its aspects, yet unfalteringly grounded 
in that noblest of the divine attributes, loving self-ef- 
facement. We have seen the heroism, the tragedy, the 
disappointments, and the w^eaknesses worked out in 
Lamb's life; and it now remains for us to estimate the 
lighter and the brighter side of this most fascinating 
personality of our literature. 



INTEODUCTION xxxi 

Most of Lamb's acquaintances knew him only as a 
rare wag, a great punster, and a player of practical 
jokes. His deadly fits of depression, which alternated 
with his buoyancy of spirits, were known only to those 
few friends to whom he opened his heart. To most of 
his friends he was '' the gentle and the frolic " — some- 
times gay even to the point of hysteria. He had an an- 
swer for every assault, an unexpected turn for every 
situation. On one occasion, when he was reproved for 
coming to the office late in the mornings, he pleaded 
that he made up for it by going away early in the after- 
noons. He once described Coleridge as an *' archangel, 
a little damaged,'' than which there could be no more 
happy turning of Coleridge's propensity to lord it 
over his more modest friend in matters intellectual. 
'^ Charles, did you ever hear me preach? '' asked Cole- 
ridge, referring to the days when he used to occupy a 
Unitarian pulpit. '^ I never heard you do anything 
else," was the reply of his imperturbable friend. In- 
stances of his witty retorts might be multiplied indefi- 
nitely, though they would all lose in the telling through 
the lack of their setting. 

In like manner, many instances of his warm-hearted 
generosity might be recorded. Barry Cornwall once ap- 
peared to be in low spirits when at Lamb's rooms. 
Lamb imagined he might be in financial difficulties. 
Turning suddenly to his friend he stammered out in his 
customary offhand manner: " My dear boy, I have a 
quantity of useless things — I have now in my desk a — a 
hundred pounds — that I don't know what to do with. 
Take it. ' ' Ainger records many instances of the bounty 
of one who could with difficulty get together enough for 
the modest necessities of his sister and himself. And 
when Lamb did not give of his all too scanty allowance, 



xxxii INTRODUCTION 

he gave prodigally of his sympathy. All men were his 
brothers, from the beggar whose banishment from the 
streets he bemoaned ' to the ragged little chimney sweep, 
of whom he writes with an almost maternal tenderness.^ 
He loved children with a lonely bachelor's love,^ and he 
venerated womanhood as only one of high-bred instincts 
and noble sentiments is able to do.^ 

Lamb was never happier than when " encountering 
pell-mell '' the crowds in the streets of London. The 
city fascinated him. Here he was at home ; here, he was 
accustomed to say, people should live. He spoke of 
'' the sweet security of streets.'' He noted the motley 
crowds, not with the pity of the coxcomb, nor with the 
disassociated interest of the professional moralist and re- 
former, but with that human interest which saw in each 
individual a brother of like hopes and fears with him- 
self. 

Lamb was so keen an observer of all that went on 
about him, and was so interested in life as he saw it, 
that his lack of interest in politics is worthy more than 
passing mention. He noted the character and habits of 
beggars and sweeps as minutely as the botanist notes the 
flower or the entomologist the beetle; but in the cur- 
rent activities of politics, home or foreign, he exhibited, 
in his writings at least, not the slightest interest. The 
tumults of Jena and Waterloo passed by him unheeded ; 
Napoleon swept the board of Europe, and then lost the 
game he had won, but Lamb seemed not to care. His 
fancy was not caught by the march of events; he was 
absorbed in his own progress through the world, and in 

1 See essay, " A Complaint of the Decay of Beggars." 

2 See essay, " In Praise of Chimney Sweepers." 

3 See essay, " Dream-Children." 

4 See essay, " Modern Gallantry." 



INTRODUCTION xxxiii 

noting the things he saw as he passed along — men, 
women, children, city streets, buildings, " books, pic- 
tures, theaters, chit-chat, scandal, jokes, ambiguities, and 
a thousand whim-whams '' — all that made up the life 
about him. He used the microscope, not the telescope. 

This sounds as though Lamb were egotistical. In a 
way such was, indeed, the fact. '^ He seemed to real- 
ize in himself what Wordsworth long afterward de- 
scribed as ' the central calm at the heart of all agita- 
tion.' Through the medium of his mind the stormy 
convulsions of society were seen * silent as in a picture.' " 
As Augustus Caesar called up the whole world to be 
taxed, so he summoned mankind to be speculated upon. 
But his was a modest egotism, more apparent in his 
writings than in his personality. In truth, his modesty 
many times amounted to positive shyness. His stam- 
mering often made him, among strangers, '^ sit silent, 
and be suspected for an odd fellow ' ' ; and the memory 
of his own failures and disappointments kept him, 
among his peers and inferiors alike, the mildest of 
egotists. 

Lamb had a fondness for things fixed and stable: 
* ' any alteration, on this earth of mine, in diet or in lodg- 
ing, puzzles and discomposes me," he says in the essay, 
^'New Year's Eve." Perhaps Lamb loved London so 
much because it was old and enduring; and he may 
have loved the human-kind for a like reason. At any 
rate, the love of antiquity he so often professed was a 
strong trait of his character. The expression of it in 
his writings appears in his frequent use of archaic 
forms and expressions; in his character, the feeling 
manifests itself in a spontaneous delight in old books, 
old prints and illustrations, old buildings, old familiar 

scenes. 

3 



xxxiv INTRODUCTION 

Lamb was an artist. His essays, which seem so free in 
style and so colloquial in manner, were really the re- 
sult of the most painstaking labor of which an artist is 
capable. And Lamb's was the artistic temperament — 
careless of convention, and affecting the unusual in dress, 
manner, and conversation. He loved the startling and 
the sudden ; was never happier than when hoaxing some 
one ; and was ' ' as pleased as Punch ' ' when he could 
shock some hide-bound pedant with a wild theory or an 
unorthodox assertion. He pronounced the most daring 
paradoxes with an air of deliberate wisdom; and put 
forth a wild theory as gravely as though he were ut- 
tering a platitude. Once he published, in utter serious- 
ness, a memoir of the actor Liston which was pure fabri- 
cation. You will note throughout the essays this same 
love of mystification, of the hoax, and the paradox ; and 
over all this wild and extravagant fooling the tinge of 
melancholy which marked the man, and the pathetic 
sweetness of disposition which all his biographers love 
to dwell upon. 

THE ESSAY 

'' The Nineteenth Century essay,'' says Professor An- 
derson, '' was a new literary organ, difficult to define; 
something not a book, nor a treatise, nor a dissertation ; 
long enough to instruct, to interest, to suggest a thou- 
sand things, and (w^hat is perhaps its most important 
note) short enough to be read at one sitting." Its origin 
lies far back in antiquity — farther than we need to go. 
The essay of modern literature, however, takes its rise 
with the famous French essayist, Montaigne (1533- 
1592), who gave to this literary form the charmingly 
light, personal, and conversational touches which have 
ever since been demanded as its attributes. The charac- 



INTRODUCTION xxxv 

ter of Montaigne's work may be described in his own 
words, '' I speak unto paper as unto the first man I 
meet/' which happily indicate his informal, conversa- 
tional manner. 

Bacon characterizes his own essays as '' certain brief 
notes set down rather significantly than curiously '' — 
that is, as being merely suggestive to the reader, rather 
than fully informing. Both he and Montaigne used the 
word essay in its Latin sense (exagium, a weigh- 
ing). The direct English derivative, assay, meant to 
test, to try, in which sense it still survives. We thus 
see the essay to be a tiny literary crucible, in which 
questions of every kind are tested and tried, though not 
with finality. As Professor Anderson puts it in speak- 
ing of Bacon's essays: '' Each was an assay of some 
topic, and a ' try ' at its treatment. The title ex- 
pressly waived any attempt at completeness, still less at 
exhaustiveness. In the first Baconian essays the sub- 
ject was a mere heading, under which the author's 
opinions were jotted down with utmost conciseness." 

The English essay has come downa to us through many 
hands — each adding something to its significance and 
artistic value; we note Swift, Addison, Steele, Johnson, 
and Goldsmith of the eighteenth century ; Lamb, Hazlitt, 
Hunt, De Quincey, Macaulay, Arnold, and Emerson of 
the nineteenth century. From among all these names 
that of Lamb stands forth as preeminent. It will be in- 
teresting to inquire somewhat into the secret of his art, 
the individuality of his method. At this point, how- 
ever, take up the reading of the essays themselves. Read 
each essay through for its spirit and flavor, irrespective 
of the notes ; then study the essay with the notes. When 
the volume has been completed, and after you have 
formed some critical opinions of your own, come back to 



xxxvi INTRODUCTION 

this critical matter, and study it in the light of what 
you have learned about the essays at first hand. 

LAMB AS AN ESSAYIST: THE QUALITIES OF HIS ART 

He is a great writer who reproduces for us better 
than we could have described them, those seemingly un- 
interesting things of common experience about which we 
daily form impressions more or less vague. We live in 
the midst of many trivial events that go to make up life 
as a whole, and they seem so commonplace that they do 
not greatly impress us — our meals, our clothes, our 
neighbors, the beggars on the streets, the cab-drivers, the 
newsboys. Lamb, however, sees all these common things 
of life with keen eyes, and holds them up before us so 
vividly reproduced on the printed page that we behold 
them with our mind's eye as we never did with the eye 
of flesh. How does he do it ? A short consideration of 
his method and style may answer the question. 

In the first place, Lamb made the essay more inti- 
mate and personal than it had been even in Montaigne's 
hand; he made it lighter and more whimsical. At the 
same time, strange as the contradiction may seem, he 
made the essay deeper and more subtle than it had been 
in Bacon's hands. Bacon lived in a world of philosoph- 
ical reflection, and as we read his essays we behold him 
at his work, digging among the abstruse things of life. 
Lamb does not appear to be at work at all, but he 
opens to us, nevertheless, the deepest wells of the human 
heart. He saw life deeply and reproduced it sincerely. 
This was the method and spirit of his work. Let us 
inquire somewhat into the detail of it. 

Those who know Lamb only through his '' Essays of 
Elia " see a man to whom few things in life appear 
wholly serious. Even the essays that seem most sober in 



INTEODUCTION xxxvii 

their vein, such as " New Year's Eve '' and '' Dream- 
Children, ' ' have their whimsicalities, which Lamb could 
not or would not write away. He interrupts some 
' ' heightened colloquy, ' ' in which perhaps a tone of ven- 
eration prevails, to throw you a scrap of waggery be- 
tween parentheses which is worth a whole feast of other 
men's fun. Such is the little fling at woman's talka- 
tiveness in ^ ^ A ^Quaker Meeting, ' ' when he describes the 
delights of silent intercourse, '^ reading a book through 
a long winter evening with a. friend sitting by — say, a 
wife — he, or she, too (if that be probable), reading an- 
other, without interruption or oral communication." 
The parenthesis constitutes a shockingly delightful in- 
terruption of the sober progress of the essay. Wit such 
as this is a kind of explosive — you never know when it 
is going off, and Lamb himself seems not to know either. 
He would " e'en out with what was uppermost," be it a 
shocking pun, a flash of wit, or a boisterous paradox. 

Then there is Lamb's mellow humor. Essays full of 
delicious nonsense, like " All Fools' Day " and '' The 
Two Races of Men," and essays filled to the brim with 
the purest absurdity soberly dressed, like '' A Disserta- 
tion on Roast Pig," illustrate his drollery at its best; 
but all the' essays contain it to some degree. His 
love of hoax and mystification as shown in the essay, 
'' The South-Sea House," where he dryly exclaims, 
' ' Living accounts and accountants puzzle me ; I have 
no skill in .figuring " ; his extravagant flights of wildest 
fancy, as illustrated in * ' Distant Correspondents " ; his 
absurd transference of archaic words and phrases to 
modern or trivial situations, as in '* A Dissertation on 
Roast Pig " ; his sly little hits at his friends, as shown 
by his constant ridiculing of Dyer and Coleridge, 
notably in " Oxford in the Vacation" and '' The Two 



xxxviii INTRODUCTION 

Races of Men " ; his confidential asides with his reader ; 
his multiplication of ridiculous details ; his little ironies 
and droll figures of speech ; all these are phases of wag- 
gery which are to be met with throughout the essays. 

One of the delightful qualities of Lamb's humor is 
that it is often wholly unforeseen, and many times is so 
mixed with a subdued tenderness as to make us pause 
between a smile and a tear. In ' ' Mackery End, ' ' when 
describing Bridget, he says: '' We are generally in 
harmony, with occasional bickerings — as it should be 
among near relations. ' ' One critic says : ' ' What is the 
name for this antithesis of irony — this hiding of a 
sweet aftertaste in a bitter word? Whatever its name, 
it is a dominant flavor in Lamb's humor. ... He takes 
homely and familiar things and makes them fresh and 
beautiful. The fashion of to-day is to vulgarize great 
and noble things by burlesque associations. The humor- 
ist's contrast is obtained in both cases; only that in the 
one it elevates the commonplace, and in the other it de- 
grades the excellent." In these days of burlesque and 
vaudeville and comic supplement, we cannot dwell too 
long over Lamb's humor. 

Perhaps the most striking feature of Lamb's style, 
however, is the happiness with which he turns his 
phrases. In a way that almost outdoes the strongest 
poetry, he describes in a line or two a bit of life or 
scenery over which the less clever writer might dwell for 
a labored page. Did you ever see a clearer picture in 
briefer compass than that miniature description of the 
fish pond in '' Dream-Children," where, as a boy, he 
watches ' ' the dace that darted to and fro in the fish 
pond at the bottom of the garden, with here and there 
a great sulky pike hanging midway down the water in 
silent state as if it mocked at their impertinent frisk- 



INTEODUCTION xxxix 

ings "? Or were ever indelible portraits painted in 
briefer compass than those pictures of Evans, Tame, 
Tipp, James Elia, Lovel, Salt, and Coventry? Were 
ever adjectives more fitly selected than when he pictures 
Coventry, '' whose person was a quadrate, his step 
massy and elephantine, his face square as a lion's, his 
gait peremptory and path-keeping ''? 

In this connection must be mentioned the skill with 
which Lamb selects illustrative allusions, drawn from his 
immense range of reading. Of Coventry he said, he 
^^ made a solitude of children wherever he came, for 
they fled his insufferable presence as they would have 
shunned an Elisha bear." Here is the one allusion in 
all literature fitted to describe the terror of the fleeing 
children ; and Lamb picked it out with unerring accuracy. 
There is a touch of the awe of Mt. Sinai when, further 
describing Coventry, he says, '\ Clouds of snuff, aggra- 
vating the natural terrors of his speech, broke from each 
majestic nostril, darkening the air.'' There is genius 
defying criticism w^hen, from his wide range of read- 
ing, he draws those two contrasting pictures from Milton 
to illustrate the seasonable and the unseasonable graces ; 
when, comparing the lower and the upper schools at 
Christ's, he says, '' We were a sort of Helots to his 
young Spartans"; and when he speaks of the ass 

harbored by the execrable monitor H as being 

'' happier than Caligula's minion." 

A consideration of the diversity of Lamb 's illustrative 
allusions leads naturally to another point closely re- 
lated to his bookishness — his use of old words and quaint 
phrases. Herein is shown his devotion to Sir Thomas 
Browne, Puller, Burton, and other of his '' midnight 
darlings." Such an old word is agnize, used in the es- 
say, " Oxford in the Vacation," while others are en- 



xl INTRODUCTION 

gendiire (page 103), and reluct (page 47). Such words 
as these, usually awkward and cumbersome, fall natu- 
rally from his lips, and seem wholly in keeping with 
the old thee and thou he so often affects. In his serious 
vein he says (''A Quakers^ Meeting "), '' Dost thou 
love silence ? ' ' and the Biblical form is impressive ; in a 
lighter mood, when describing his favorite young pig a- 
roasting, he exclaims, ' ' How equably he twirleth round 
the string, ' ' and the effect is ludicrous. 

Lamb is possessed of wonderful ability in producing 
precisely the impression he intends. He does it many 
times by piling figure on figure, by multiplying new and 
unique ways of expressing the same thought. An ex- 
ample of this to which attention is called in the notes is 
to be found on page 92. Refer to the passage and no- 
tice how he leaves the thought at the end of the para- 
graph struck through with light from every conceivable 
angle of vision. The sentences are crisp and clear, each 
amplifying the thought already presented rather than 
presenting a new thought. This is a favorite method of 
Lamb's, and is always a telling one. Often, too, he closes 
the paragraph with a restatement of the truth in terse, 
epigrammatic sentences. Not less does Lamb aim at pro- 
ducing the desired impression when he exhibits the 
strong differences between his narrative and his exposi- 
tory styles. When he tells a story he does it simply, 
using few archaic words and little involved phraseology ; 
the moment he leaves narrative and proceeds in the essay 
manner, there is a return to his models. An excellent 
example of the two styles in a single essay is to be found 
in '' A Dissertation on Roast Pig." The story of Hoti 
and Bobo is a narrative of the origin of roast pig, told 
in Lamb's simplest manner; but when he begins his ex- 
position of the delights of roast pig, the style changes at 



INTRODUCTION xli 

once to the complex : the archaic words again make their 
appearance, and the quaint phrases and the old pecu- 
liarities of diction fall naturally upon the page. 

It will be seen from what has been said that Lamb 
was more than a craftsman ; he was an artist, who knew 
how to choose his materials, blend his colors, create his 
effects. The appearance of easy colloquialism in his es- 
says was studied, and bears witness to Lamb's intimate 
knowledge of his art — ^ ' the art that conceals art. ' ' His 
style has been the admiration of the critics and the de- 
spair of the imitators ever since the first volumes of the 
London appeared; and it has now come to be so uni- 
versally recognized as his, and his alone, that it is 
doubtful if it can ever be successfully copied by no mat- 
ter how clever a craftsman. '^ He was,'' says Ainger, 
'' the last of the Elizabethans. He had ^ learned their 
great language,' and yet he had early discovered, with 
the keen eye of a humorist, how effective for his pur- 
pose was the touch of the pedantic and the fantastical 
from which the noblest of them were not wholly free. 
He was thus able to make even their weaknesses a fresh 
source of delight, as he dealt with them from the van- 
tage ground of two centuries. . . . But it is not the an- 
tique manner — the ^ self-pleasing quaintness ' — that has 
embalmed the substance. Rather is there that in the 
substance which insures immortality for the style. It is 
one of the rewards of purity of heart that, allied with 
humor, it has promise of perennial charm. ' ' 

MARY LAMB 

'^ Mary Lamb survived her brother nearly thirteen 

vears, dying at the advanced age of eighty-two, on the 

^Oth of May, 1847. . . . After leaving Edmonton, she 

lived chiefly at St. John's Wood, under the care of a 



xlii INTEODUCTION 

nurse. Her pension, together with the income from her 
brother's savings, was amply sufficient for her few needs. 
" ' She will live forever in the memory of her 
friends/ writes that true and faithful friend, Crabb 
Robinson, ' as one of the most amiable and admirable of 
women. ' From this verdict there is no dissentient voice. 
Her few but very significant letters, and her con- 
tributions to literature, show her strong and healthy 
common sense, her true womanliness, and her gift of 
keen and active sympathy. She shared with Charles a 
love of Quakerlike color and homeliness in dress. ' She 
wore a neat cap,' Mr. Procter tells us, ' of the fashion 
of her youth ; an old-fashioned dress. Her face was pale 
and somewhat square, but very placid, with gray, intel- 
ligent eyes. She Avas very mild in her manners to 
strangers ; and to her brother, gentle and tender, always. 
She had often an upward look of peculiar meaning when 
directed toward him, as though to give him an assurance 
that all was then well with her. ' This unvarying man- 
ner, betokening mutual dependence and interest, was 
the feature that most impressed all who watched them 
together, her eyes often fixed on his as on ' some ador- 
ing disciple,' and ever listening to help his speech in 
some difficult word, and to anticipate the coming need. 
He in turn was always on the watch to detect in her 
face any sign of failing health or spirits, and to divert 
the conversation, if occasion arose, from any topic that 
might distress her or set up some dangerous excitement. 
. . . She was strong where he was weak, and reposeful 
where he was often ill at ease. She was indeed fitted in 
all respects to be Charles Lamb's lifelong companion." 
— Ainger's " Charles Lamb," VIII. 



INTEODUCTION xliii 



THE INNS OF COURT 

Lamb ^s father, who was clerk to a London lawyer, lived 
nearly all his life in the midst of the Temple and the 
activities of the courts. Lamb himself was born in the 
Inner Temple, lived there continuously (save for his 
residence at Christ's Hospital) for twenty years (1775- 
1795), and at later periods in his life he lived in that 
district in London known as the '' Temple,'' or in 
streets adjacent thereto, for considerable periods. It is 
natural, therefore, that the '' Essays of Elia " should 
abound in references to the Temple and the Inns of 
Court; and it is equally natural that the American 
student should be confused by familiar references to 
places and customs unfamiliar to him. It will be well, 
therefore, to inquire with regard to the Inns of Court, 
and to learn something of that maze of buildings in 
London which surround the courts and house the lawyers 
that practice therein. 

There are in London four sets of buildings, the In- 
ner Temple, the Middle Temple, Lincoln's Inn, and 
Gray's Inn, which are devoted to the law and the law- 
yers. These four groups of buildings belong to the four 
legal societies which have the exclusive right of admit- 
ting persons to practice at the bar, and which hold a 
course of instruction and examination for that purpose ; 
hence the term '' Inns of Court " is also applied to the 
societies themselves. 

The buildings of the Inns of Court were originally 
inns {hospitia) at which law and other students were 
housed, fed, and given their training, in the early days 
training in divinity, dancing, vocal and instrumental 
music, as well as in law. At a later time the training 
became less emphasized, the Inns being more and more 



xliv INTRODUCTION 

regarded as buildings to let in chambers for the use of 
lawyers and law students, without any regard to the 
training which the legal societies were supposed to ad- 
minister. 

At the present time, however, the Inns of Court are 
real seminaries of legal learning, having more the char- 
acter of our own law schools. Students are admitted on 
examination. Good courses of lectures have been intro- 
duced. Each Inn maintains a church and a rector of 
the Church of England, the famous Church of the Tem- 
plars, St. Mary's, being shared iii common by the Inner 
and the Middle Temples (page 102). 

Each Inn is distinct from the other, and is self-gov- 
erning. A curious fact about them is, that w^hile they 
are unincorporated, self -perpetuating, and entirely inde- 
pendent, they have the exclusive right of admitting to 
the bar, and also of disbarring. They do not govern at- 
torneys, however — merely the barristers.^ 

Each Inn of Court elects its senior members to a gov- 
erning body, in whose hands entire control is placed. 
This body is known as the " Bench,'' and the members 
of it the ' ' Benchers. ' ' In the several societies the num- 
ber of benchers varies from forty to eighty. (See 
Lamb's essay, '' The Old Benchers of the Inner Tem- 
ple," page 102.) 

Students going from the universities into law used first 
to go to the Inns of Chancery and then to the Inns of 
Court, to which the former w^ere in a manner subordi- 
nate and preparatory. Each Inn of Court had its re- 

1 In America the terms attorney and counselor are interchange- 
able. In England an attorney or solicitor does not appear in 
court, but begins actions at law and furnishes material to the 
barrister, or counselor, who alone is permitted to plead a case 
in court. 



INTRODUCTION xlv 

lated Inns of Chancery (there were nine in all), the 
best known, Clifford's Inn, being attached to the Inner 
Temple, while Furnivars Inn (now demolished) be- 
longed to Lincoln's Inn. 

The Inns to-day consist of large tracts of houses and 
chambers occupied by benchers, barristers, and students. 
The buildings are all within three quarters of a mile of 
each other, the district being that bounded, roughly, on 
the south by the Thames ; on the east by Temple Avenue, 
Chancery Lane, and Gray's Inn Road; on the north by 
Theobald's Road; on the west by Gray's Inn Gardens, 
Lincoln's Inn Fields, the Courts of Justice, and Essex 
Street. The accompanying map will give a general idea 
of the grouping of the buildings. 

The Temple gets its name from the fact that it 
was originally the English home of the Knights Tem- 
plar, the present Inner Temple occupying the site of 
the old mansion of the Templars. The Knights Tem- 
plar were dissolved in 1312, and by 1350 legal societies 
had taken over their quarters. Most of the old build- 
ings of the Inner Temple were destroyed in the great 
fire of 1666, the Temple Church being the only build- 
ing to survive. This old building is famous not only 
for its age, but because it is one of the four round 
churches built on the plan of the church of the Holy 
Sepulcher at Jerusalem. Goldsmith is buried in the 
churchyard. 

The buildings are on the opposite side of Middle Tem- 
ple Lane from the Inner Temple. The old hall, in which 
occurred many famous incidents, notably the maskings 
and entertainments to Queen Elizabeth, was completed 
in 1572. 

In the reign of Edward II the Earl of Lincoln pos- 
sessed Lincoln's Jnn, It was probably used as a law- 




.^UVO 



.00^ 



EMBA NKMENT 




MAP OF THE TEMPLE, 



xlvi 



INTRODUCTION xlvii 

yers' inn as early as 1310. The old hall, built in 1506, 
still remains. 

Gray's Inn was occupied by lawyers before 1370. The 
present hall was completed in 1560. Here, in 1594, 
Shakespeare's '' Comedy of Errors '' was acted. It is 
supposed that Francis Bacon laid out the garden and 
planted some of the trees in 1597.^ 

Clifford's Inn, one of the principal Inns of Chancery, 
is several times mentioned by Lamb, once as being the 
home of his friend Dyer. It was named after Robert de 
Clifford, living in the reign of Edward II, and is the 
oldest inn in Chancery. It is now used for office and 
business purposes. The Inn was once noted from the 
fact that all the attorneys of the Marshalsea court,^ 
where debtors were tried, had their chambers there. 

1 The Outer Temple has been torn down, the site now being 
occupied by Exeter House and Essex Street. The name has since 
been appropriated by a new block of offices and chambers oppo- 
site the new law courts. 

2 The Marshalsea court is the famous debtors' court. The 
Marshalsea prison, where debtors were confined, has been made 
famous by Dickens's story, " Little Dorrit." 



TOPICS FOR WRITTEN WORK 



E$say Page 

1. The Life of Lamb Introduction 

2. The Character of Lamb Introduction 

3. Lamb's QuaHties as an Essayist Introduction 

4. Larnb as an Observer of Life Introduction 

5. Lamb and his Friends Introduction 

6. Lamb as a Reader Introduction 

7. Lamb's Relations with his Sister ... 

Introduction and VIII. 

8. Lamb's Relations with his Brother . . 

Introduction and VII. 

9. The Inns of Court Introduction 

10. A Description of the South Sea House I. 1-5 

11. Cashier Evans I. 5-6 

12. Deputy Cashier Tame I. 6-8 

13. Accountant John Tipp I. 8-10 

14. Man, Plumer, and the Others I. 10-13 

15. The Menus at Christ's Hospital II. 14-16 

16. Hohdays at Christ's Hospital 11. 16-17 

17. The Story of the Gag-Eater II. 20-22 

18. Punishments at Christ's Hospital II. 22-24 

19. The Rev. James Boyer 11. 25-30 

20. The Rev. Matthew Field II. 25-30 

21. Some of Lamb's Old Schoolmates II. 30-33 

22. Lamb at Christ's Hospital II. 

23. Hardships Endured at Christ's Hospital. . 11. 

24. Some Contrasts between Christ's Hos- 

pital and American Schools II. 

25. Ralph Bigod, Esq III. 36-39 

26. Coleridge as a Borrower of Books III. 39-42 

xlviii 



TOPICS FOR WRITTEN WORK xlix 

Essay Page 

27. Elia\s Love of the Past and of Life IV. 43-46 

28. Elia's Fear of Death IV. 46-50 

29. The Cheerful Side of New Year's IV. 50-52 

30. Elia's Musical Endowments V. 53-56 

31. Elia at Oratorio and Opera V. 56-59 

32. Elia at Novello's V. 59-61 

33. The Perfection of Silence VI. 63-66 

34. The Early Quakers; their Influence and 

their Writings VI. 67-69 

35. Impressions of a Quakers' Meeting VI. 

36. ^'My Aunt'' VII. 71-72 

37. '^ J. E."— His Contradictory Character.. VII. 73-76 

38. ^^J. E." as a Collector of Pictures VII. 76-78 

39. ^^ J. E." as an Humanitarian VII. 78-80 

40. ^^Bridget Elia" VIII. 81-83 

41. A Visit to Mackery End VIII. 84-88 

42. Elia and the Scotch IX. 91-95 

43. Elia and the Jews IX. 95-97 

44. Elia and the Quakers IX. 97-101 

45. A Description of the Inner Temple X. 102-107 

46. Sun-Dials and Fountains X. 104-107 

47. Thomas Coventry X. 107-111 

48. Samuel Salt X. 108-112 

49. Lovel (John Lamb, Sr.) X. 112-113 

50. Other of the Old Benchers X. 113-117 

51. The Unlikelihood of Witches XL 119-121 

52. Elia's Acquaintance with Stackhouse, 

and the Result XL 121-123 

53. Childhood Dreams XL 123-126 

54. Night Fancies of Later Life XL 126-128 

55. Seasonable Graces XII. 

56. Unseasonable Graces XII. 

57. Elia as an Epicure XII. 135 

58. Dream Children XIII. 

59. Grandmother Field and the Old House 

at Norfolk XIII. 140-145 

60. The Three Essentials of a Letter— News. XIV. 147-149 

4 



1 TOPICS FOR WRITTEN WORK 

Essay Page 

61. The Three Essentials of a Letter — Senti- 

ment XIV. 149-151 

62. The Three Essentials of a Letter— Puns. . XIV. 151-152 

63. Elia's Notions of Australia XIV. 152-153 

64. Elia's Interest in the Young Sweeps. . . . XV. 155-156 

65. Saloop and Its Vendors XV. 156-159 

66. Anecdotes of Sweeps XV. 159-162 

67. The Jem White Dinners XV. 162-165 

68. The Origin of Roast Pig XVI. 166-170 

69. Praise of Roast Pig XVI. 170-176 

70. The Bachelor's Complaint XVII. 

71. The Lack of Modern Gallantry XVIII. 187-189 

72. Joseph Paice XVIII. 189-193 

73. Elia's Partiality for Old China XIX. 194-195 

74. The Delights of Being Poor XIX. 195-202 

75. The Male Poor Relation XX. 203-205 

76. The Female Poor Relation XX. 205-206 

77. W of Oxford XX. 206-209 

78. The Old Gentleman from the Mint XX. 209-211 

79. A Trip to Margate on the Hoy XXI. 

80. The Astounding Tales of the Fellow- 

traveller XXL 214-216 

81. Feelings on First Beholding the Ocean . . . XXI. 217-222 

82. The Destruction of Blakesware XXII. 223-224 

83. Recollections of Blakesware XXII. 224-230 

84. The Confinement of Office Work XXIII. 231-233 

85. Elia's Retirement XXIII. 233-235 

86. The First Weeks of Freedom XXIII. 235-238 

87. Impressions after a Fortnight XXIII. 238-241 



GENERAL TOPICS 

88. Lamb's Use of Quotation. 

89. Lamb's Love of Mystification. 

90. The Qualities of Lamb's Humour. 

91. The Revelation of Lamb's Personality in the Essays. 



TOPICS FOK WKITTEN WORK li 

92. The Difficulties of Estimating Lamb's Personality through 

the Essays. 

93. Lamb's Love of the City. 

94. Lamb's Keen Powers of Observation. 

95. Lamb's Vocabulary. 

96. The Qualities of Lamb's Style. 

97. The Humanitarian Side of Lamb. 

98. Lamb's Use of Pathos. 

99. Narrative vs. Essay Style. 

100. The Essay as a Form of Literature. 



LAMB'S KEY 



The essays are full of veiled references to Lamb's 
friends^ acquaintances, and others, usually indicated by an 
initial, occasionally by dashes or asterisks. The explana- 
tory Key that follows, Lamb drew up for his friend Mr. 
Pitman, a fellow clerk at the East India House. While 
the footnotes in this edition interpret the references, it 
will be of interest to note the form of Lamb's Key and 
the comments he appended. The Key is as Lamb gave it, 
save that the numbers of the pages are altered to refer to 
this edition. Where no page is given, the reference is to 
an essay not included in this edition . 

Page 

M 12 Maynard, hang'd himself. 

G. D George Dyer, Poet. 

H 18 Hodges. 

W 29 

Dr. T e. 30 Dr. Trollope. 

Th 31 Thornton. 

S 32 Scott, died in Bedlam. 

M 32 Maunde, dismissed school. 

C. V. le G. . . 32 Charles Valentine le Grice. 

F 33 Favell; left Camb^g because he was ashamed 

of his father, who was a house-painter there. 

Fr 33 Franklin, Gramr Mast., Hertford. 

T 33 Marmaduke Thompson. 

K 41 Kenney, Dramatist. Author of ^'Raising 

Wind/' etc. 

m 



LAMB'S KEY 



liii 



S. T. C 



Page 

42 



Samuel Taylor Coleridge (not in Lamb^s 
autograph). 
Alice W — n 44 Winterton (feigned). 
*** 45 ^ 

**** 45 r No meaning. 

*** ... 45 J 

Mrs. S 54 Mrs. Spinkes. 

R Ramsay, London Library, Ludg. St. ; now ex- 

tinct. 
Granville S. Granville Sharp (not in Lamb's autograph). 

E. B Edward Burney, half-brother of Miss Burney* 

B 96 Braham, now a Xtian. 

*** *** **** . 79 Distrest Sailors. 

J. 11 107 Jekyll. 

Susan P .... 110 Susan Pierson. 

R. N 117 Randall Norris, Subtreas^, Inner Temple. 

C 135 Coleridge. 

F Field. 

B. F 146 Baron Field, brother of Frank. 

Lord C 149 Lord Camelford. 

Sally W r 1 54 Sally Winter. 

J. W 154 Jas. White, author of "Falstaff's Letters.'' 

St. L ),, 

B. Rector of } Nomeamng. 



DEDICATION 

TO THE FRIENDLY AND JUDICIOUS READER 

Who will take these Papers as they were meant; not understand- 
ing everything perversely in the absolute and literal sense, hut 
giving fair construction as to an after-dinner conversation; al- 
lowing for the rashness and necessary incompleteness of first 
thoughts; and not remembering for the purpose of an after 
taunt words spoken peradventure after the fourth glass. The 
Author wishes [ichat he would wish for himself) plenty of good 
friends to stand by him, good books to solace him, prosperous 
events to all his honest undertakings, and a candid interpreta- 
tion to his most hasty words and actions. The other sort {and 
he hopes many of them icill purchase his book too) he greets ivith 
the curt invitation of Timon, *^ Uncover, dogs, and lap,^' or he 
dismisses them with the confident security of the philosopher, 
" You beat but on the case of — Elia." 

December 7, 1822. 



SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 



I. THE SOUTH-SEA HOUSE 

Reader, in thy passage from the Bank — where thou 
liast been receiving thy half-yearly dividends (suppos- 
ing thou art a lean annuitant like myself) — to the 
Flower Pot, to secure a place for Dalston, or Shackle- 
well, or some other thy suburban retreat northerly,— 5 
didst thou never observe a melancholy-looking, hand- 
some, brick and stone edifice, to the left — where Thread- 
needle Street abuts upon Bishopsgate? I daresay thou 
hast often admired its magnificent portals ever gaping 
wide, and disclosing to view a grave court, with clois- 10 
ters, and pillars, with few or no traces of goers-in or 
comers-out — a desolation something like Balclutha's. 

This was once a house of trade, — a center of busy in- 
terests. The throng of merchants was here — the quick 
pulse of gain — and here some forms of business are 15 
still kept up, though the soul be long since fled. Here 
are still to be seen stately porticoes; imposing stair- 
cases; offices roomy as the state apartments in palaces 
— deserted, or thinly peopled with a few straggling 
clerks; the still more sacred interiors of court and 20 
committee-rooms, with venerable faces of beadles, door- 
keepers — directors seated in form on solemn days (to 



1. the Bank: the Bank of England, Threadneedle Street, London. 
4. the Flower Pot: an old inn near the South- Sea House, from 
which the coaches started. 

1 



2 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

proclaim a dead dividend), at long worm-eaten tables, 
that have been mahogany, with tarnished gilt-leather 
coverings, supporting massy silver inkstands long since 
dry; — the oaken wainscots hung with pictures of de- 
5 ceased governors and sub-governors, of Queen Anne, 
and the two first monarchs of the Brunswick dynasty; 
— huge charts, which subsequent discoveries have anti- 
quated ; — dusty maps of Mexico, dim as dreams, — and 
soundings of the Bay of Panama! — The long passages 

10 hung with buckets, appended, in idle row, to walls, 
whose substance might defy any, short of the last con- 
flagration: — with vast ranges of cellarage under all, 
where dollars and pieces of eight once lay, an ^ ^ unsunned 
heap,^' for Mammon to have solaced his solitary heart 

15 withal, — long since dissipated, or scattered into air at 

the blast of the breaking of that famous Bubble. 

Such is the South-Sea House. At least, such it was 
forty years ago, when I knew it, — a magnificent relic! 
What alterations may have been made in it since, I 

20 have had no opportunities of verifying. Time, I take 
for granted, has not freshened it. No wind has resus- 
citated the face of the sleeping waters. A thicker crust 
by this time stagnates upon it. The moths, that were 
then battening upon its obsolete ledgers and day-books, 

25 have rested from their depredations, but other light 



1. dead dividend. Dividends on business actiiaUy done had long 
since ceased; only interest returns on capital held by the govern- 
ment were made. 

13. pieces of eight: the Spanish dollar, or piaster, divided into 
eight reals. 

13-14. "unsunned heap." Cf. Milton's " Comus," 398. 

14. Mammon: riches personified, from the name of the Syrian 
god of riches. Cf. " Faerie Queen," II, 7. 

24. battening: fattening. 

25. other light generations: other moths and insects. 



THE SOUTH-SEA HOUSE 3 

generations have succeeded, making fine fretwork among 
their single and double entries. Layers of dust have 
accumulated (a superfoetation of dirt!) upon the old 
layers, that seldom used to be disturbed, save by some 
curious finger, now and then, inquisitive to explore the 5 
mode of book-keeping in Queen Anne's reign; or, with 
less hallowed curiosity, seeking to unveil some of the 
mysteries of that tremendous hoax, whose extent the 
petty peculators of our day look back upon with the 
same expression of incredulous admiration, and hope- 10 
less ambition of rivalry, as would become the puny face 
of modern conspiracy contemplating the Titan size of 
Vaux's superhuman plot. 

Peace to the manes of the Bubble ! Silence and des- 
titution are upon thy walls, proud house, for a memo- 15 
rial ! 

Situated as thou art, in the very heart of stirring and 
living commerce, — amid the fret and fever of specula- 
tion — with the Bank, and the 'Change, and the India 
House about thee, in the hey-day of present prosperity, 20 
with their important faces, as it were, insulting thee, 
their poor neighhor out of business — to the idle and 
merely contemplative, — to such as me, old house ! there 
is a charm in. thy quiet: — a cessation — a coolness from 
business — an indolence almost cloistral — which is de- 25 
lightful! With what reverence have I paced thy great 
bare rooms and courts at eventide! They. spoke of the 
past: — the shade of some dead accountant, with vision- 
ary pen in ear, would flit by me, stiff as in life. Living 
accounts and accountants puzzle me. 1 have no skill 30 



3. a superfoetation of dirt: layer upon layer of dirt. 

9. petty peculators: thieves on a small scale. 

19. 'Change: the Royal Exchange. 

25. cloistral: like cloisters, where indolent monks live. 



4 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

in figuring. But thy great dead tomes, which scarce 
three degenerate clerks of the present day could lift 
from their enshrining shelves — with their old fantastic 
flourishes, and decorative rubric interlacings — their 
5 sums in triple columniations, set down with formal 
superfluity of cyphers — with pious sentences at the be- 
ginning, without which our religious ancestors never 
ventured to open a book of business, or bill of lading 
— the costly vellum covers of some of them almost per- 

10 suading us that we are got into some better library, — 
are very agreeable and edifying spectacles. I can look 
upon these defunct dragons with complacency. Thy 
heavy odd-shaped ivory-handled penknives (our ances- 
tors had everything on a larger scale than we have 

15 hearts for) are as good as anything from Herculaneum. 
The pounce-boxes of our days have gone retrograde. 

The very clerks which I remember in the South-Sea 
House — I speak of forty years back — had an air very 
different from those in the public offices that I have 

20 had to do with since. They partook of the genius of 
the place! 

They were mostly (for the establishment did not ad- 
mit of superfluous salaries) bachelors. Generally (for 
they had not much to do) persons of a curious and 

25 speculative turn of mind. Old-fashioned, for a reason 
mentioned before. Humourists, for they were of all 
descriptions; and, not having been brought together in 



4. rubric interlacings: red lines crossing on the page. 

5. triple columniations: three columns — for pounds, shillings, 
and pence. 

16. pounce-boxes: boxes containing pounce — a fine powder 
which was sprinkled over the written page to prevent the ink 
from blotting. 

20. genius: spirit. 



THE SOUTH-SEA HOUSE 5 

early life (which has a tendency to assimilate the mem- 
bers of corporate bodies to each other), but, for the 
most part, placed in this house in ripe or middle age, 
they necessarily carried into it their separate habits 
and oddities, unqualified, if I may so speak, as into a 5 
common stock. Hence they formed a sort of Noah's 
ark. Odd fishes. A lay-monastery. Domestic retainers 
in a great house, kept more for show than use. Yet 
pleasant fellows, full of chat — and not a few among 
them had arrived at considerable proficiency on the 10 
German flute. 

The cashier at that time was one Evans, a Cambro- 
Briton. He had something of the choleric complexion 
of his countrymen stamped on his visage, but was a 
worthy sensible man at bottom. He wore his hair, to 15 
the last, powdered and frizzed out, in the fashion which 
I remember to have seen in caricatures of what were 
termed, in my young days, Maccaronies. He was the 
last of that race of beaux. Melancholy as a gib-cat over 
his counter all the forenoon, I think I see him making 20 
up his cash (as they call it) with tremulous fingers, as 
if he feared every one about him was a defaulter; in 
his hypochondry ready to imagine himself one ; haunted, 
at least, with the idea of the possibility of his becoming 
one : his tristful visage clearing up a little over his roast 25 
neck of veal at Anderton's at tw^o (where his picture 
still hangs, taken a little before his death by desire of 



12-13. Cambro-Briton: Welshman. Cambria was the Latin 
name for Wales. 

18. Maccaronies: fops; dandies. 

19. gib-cat: a tom-cat. For derivation see dictionary. Cf. 
Shakespeare's " I Henry IV," I, ii. 

23. hypochondry: melancholy; despondency. 

25. tristful visage: sad countenance. Cf. "Hamlet," III, iv, 50. 



6 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

the master of the coft'ee-house, which he had frequented 
for the last five-and-twenty years), but not attaining 
the meridian of its animation till evening brought on 
the hour of tea and visiting. The simultaneous sound 
5 of his well-known rap at the door with the stroke of 
the clock announcing six, was a topic of never-failing 
mirth in the families which this dear old bachelor glad- 
dened with his presence. Then was his forte^ his glori- 
fied hour! How would he chirp, and expand over a 

10 muffin ! How would he dilate into secret history ! His 
countryman. Pennant himself, in particular, could not 
be more eloquent than he in relation to old and new 
London — the site of old theaters, churches, streets gone 
to decay — where Rosamond 's Pond stood — the Mulberry- 

15 gardens — and the Conduit in Cheap — with many a 
pleasant anecdote, derived from paternal tradition, of 
those grotesque figures which Hogarth has immortalized 
in his picture of Noon, — the worthy descendants of 
those heroic confessors, who, flying to this country, from 

20 the wrath of Louis the Fourteenth and his dragoons, 
kept alive the flame of pure religion in the sheltering 
obscurities of Hog-lane, and the vicinity of the Seven 
Dials ! 

Deputy, under Evans, was Thomas Tame. He had 

25 the air and stoop of a nobleman. You w^ould have 
taken him for one, had you met him in one of the 
passages leading to Westminster-hall. By stoop, I mean 
that gentle bending of the body forwards, which, in 
great men, must be supposed to be the effect of an 

30 habitual condescending attention to the applications of 



8. forte: time when he was at his best. 

27. Westminster-hall: now one of the entrances to the houses 
of Parliament, where one would be likely to meet members of the 
nobility. 



THE SOUTH-SEA HOUSE 7 

their inferiors. While he held you in converse, you 
felt strained to the height in the colloquy. The con- 
ference over, you were at leisure to smile at the com- 
parative insignificance of the pretensions which had 
just awed you. His intellect was of the shallowest 5 
order. It did not reach to a saw or a proverb. His 
mind was in its original state of white paper. A suck- 
ing babe might have posed him. What was it then? 
Was he rich ? Alas, no ! Thomas Tame was very poor. 
Both he and his wife looked outwardly gentlefolks, 10 
when I fear all was not w^ell at all times within. She 
had a neat meagre person, which it was evident she 
had not sinned in over-pampering; but in its veins was 
noble blood. She traced her descent, by some labyrinth 
of relationship, which I never thoroughly understood, — 15 
much less can explain with any heraldic certainty at 
this time of day, — to the illustrious, but unfortunate 
house of Derwentwater. This was the secret of Thom- 
ases stoop. This was the thought — the sentiment — the 
bright solitary star of your lives, — ye mild and happy 20 
pair, — which cheered you in the night of intellect, and 
in the obscurity of your station ! This was to you 
instead of riches, instead of rank, instead of glittering 
attainments: and it was worth them all together. You 
insulted none with it; but, while you wore it as a piece 25 



1-2. While he talked with you, you felt keyed to the highest 
pitch of attention. 

6. saw: a maxim — or any trite saying. 

7. original state of white paper: his mind was as blank as 
the paper on which nothing is written. Cf . Locke, " On the 
Human Understanding/' II. 

8. posed: to pose is to puzzle by asking a question hard to 
answer. 

16. heraldic certainty: the certainty of a coat of arms show- 
ing descent. 



8 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

of defensive armor only, no insult likewise could reach 
you through it. Decus et solamen. 

Of quite another stamp was the then accountant, John 
Tipp. He neither pretended to high blood, nor in good 
5 truth cared one fig about the matter. He " thought 
an accountant the greatest character in the world, and 
himself the greatest accountant in it.'' Yet John was 
not without his hobby. The fiddle relieved hi3 vacant 
hours. He sang, certainly, with other notes than to the 

10 Orphean lyre. He did, indeed, scream and scrape most 
abominably. His fine suite of official rooms in Thread- 
needle Street, which, without anything very substantial 
appended to them, were enough to enlarge a man's 
notions of himself that lived in them — (I know not who 

15 is the occupier of them now^) — resounded fortnightly 
to the notes of a concert of '' sweet breasts," as our 
ancestors would have called them, culled from club- 
rooms and orchestras — chorus singers — first and second 
violoncellos — double basses — and clarionets — who ate his 

20 cold mutton, and drank his punch, and praised his ear. 
He sate like Lord Midas among them. But at the desk 
Tipp was quite another sort of creature. Thence all 
ideas, that were purely ornamental, were banished. You 
could not speak of anything romantic without rebuke. 

^ [I have since been informed, that the present tenant of them 
is a Mr. Lamb, a gentleman who is happy in the possession of 
some choice pictures, and among them a rare portrait of Milton, 
which I mean to do myself the pleasure of going to see, and at 
the same time to refresh my memory with the sight of old 
scenes. Mr. Lamb has the character of a right courteous and 
communicative collector.] 



2. Decus et solamen: glory and consolation. 
16. "sweet breasts": musicians. In an old sense, the word 
breast means " musical voice." 



THE SOUTH-SEA HOUSE 9 

PoJitics were excluded. A newspaper was thought too 
refined and abstracted. The whole duty of man con- 
sisted in writing off dividend warrants. The striking 
of the annual balance in the company ^s books (which, 
perhaps, differed from the balance of last year in the 5 
sum of £25, Is. 6d.) occupied his days and nights for 
a month previous. Not that Tipp was blind to the 
deadness of things (as they call them in the city) in 
his beloved house, or did not sigh for a return of the 
old stirring days when South-Sea hopes were young — 10 
(he was indeed equal to the wielding of any the most 
intricate accounts of the most flourishing company in 
these or those days) : — but to a genuine accountant the 
difference of proceeds is as nothing. The fractional 
farthing is as dear to his heart as the thousands which 15 
stand before it. He is the true actor, who, whether his 
part be a prince or a peasant, must act it with like 
intensity. With Tipp form was everything. His life 
was formal. His actions seemed ruled with a ruler. 
His pen was not less erring than his heart. He made 20 
the best executor in the world : he was plagued with 
incessant executorships accordingly, which excited his 
spleen and soothed his vanity in equal ratios. He would 
swear (for Tipp swore) at the little orphans, whose 
rights he would guard with a tenacity like the grasp 25 
of the dying hand that commended their interests to 
his protection. With all this there was about him a 



2. abstracted: visionary, or ideal, as opposed to the real and 
practical things of the accountant's office. 

14-15. The fractional farthing: to the true accountant, an exact 
balance is the thing; he is as disturbed over a small difference 
as over a large. 

21. executor: one appointed by a will to execute the terms of 
the will. 

5 



10 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

sort of timidity — (his few enemies used to give it a 
worse name) — a something which, in reverence to the 
dead, w^e will place, if you please, a little on this side 
of the heroic. Nature certainly had been pleased to 
6 endow John Tipp with a sufficient measure of the prin- 
ciple of self-preservation. There is a cowardice which 
we do not despise, because it has nothing base or treach- 
erous in its elements; it betrays itself, not you: it is 
mere temperament; the absence of the romantic and 
10 the enterprising ; it sees a lion in the way, and will not, 
with Fortinbras, '' greatly find quarrel in a straw,'' 
when some supposed honor is at stake. Tipp never 
mounted the box of a stage-coach in his life ; or leaned 
against the rails of a balcony ; or walked upon the ridge 
15 of a parapet; or looked down a precipice; or let off 
a gun ; or went upon a water-party ; or would willingly 
let you go if he could have helped it: neither was it 
recorded of him, that for lucre, or for intimidation, he 
ever forsook friend or principle. 
20 Whom next shall we summon from the dusty dead, 
in whom common qualities become uncommon? Can I 
forget thee, Henry Man, the wit, the polished man of 
letters, the autlior, of the South-Sea House? who never 
enteredst thy office in a morning, or quittedst it in mid- 
25 day — (what didst tJiou in an office?) — without some 
quirk that left a sting! Thy gibes and thy jokes are 
now extinct, or survive but in two forgotten volumes, 
which I had the good fortune to rescue from a stall in 



11. "greatly find quarrel in a straw": take offense at little 
things when one supposes his honor at stake. Cf . " Hamlet,'' 
IV, iv. 

16. water-party: a boating party on the river. 

20. dusty dead. Cf . " Macbeth," V, v, 22. 

26. quirk: a witty retort. 



THE SOUTH-SEA HOUSE H 

Barbican, not three days ago, and found thee terse, 
fresh, epigrammatic, as alive. Thy wit is a little gone 
by in these fastidious days — thy topics are staled by 
the ^ ^ new-born gauds ' ' of the time : — but great thou 
used to be in Public Ledgers, and in Chronicles, upon 5 
Chatham, and Shelburne, and Rockingham, and Howe, 
and Burgoyne, and Clinton, and the war which ended 
in the tearing from Great Britain her rebellious col- 
onies — and Keppel, and Wilkes, and Sawbridge, and 
Bull, and Dunning, and Pratt, and Richmond, — and 10 

such small politics. 

A little less facetious, and a great deal more obstrep- 
erous, was fine rattling, rattleheaded Plumer. He was 
descended — not in a right line, reader, (for his lineal 
pretensions, like his personal, favored a little of the 15 
sinister bend) — from the Plumers of Hertfordshire. So 
tradition gave him out; and certain family features not 
a little sanctioned the opinion. Certainly old Walter 
Plumer (his rej^uted author) had been a rake in his 
days, and visited much in Italy, and had seen the 20 
world. He was uncle, bachelor-uncle, to the fine old 
Whig still living, who has represented the county in 
so many successive parliaments, and has a fine old 
mansion near Ware. Walter flourished in George 
the Second's days, and w^as the same who was sum- 25 
moned before the House of Commons about a business 



1. Barbican: a street in London, off Aldersgate Street, be- 
tween Long Lane and Beech Street. 

4. "new-born gauds": modern objects of vulgar interest. Cf. 
"Troilus and Cressida," III, iii, 175. 

14. right line: the line of legitimate descent. The "sinister 
bend " in heraldry signified illegitimate descent. 

14-15. his lineal pretensions, etc.: his pretensions to family, 
like his pretensions to good looks, were not well grounded. 

25. Cave was summoned, not Plumer. 



12 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

of franks, with the old Duchess of Marlborough. You 
may read of it in Johnson's Life of Cave. Cave came 
off cleverly in that business. It is certain our Plumer 
did nothing to discountenance the rumor. He rather 
5 seemed pleased whenever it was, with all gentleness, in- 
sinuated. But, besides his family pretensions, Plumer 

was an engaging fellow, and sang gloriously. 

Not so sweetly sang Plumer as thou sangest, mild, 
child-like, pastoral M ; a flute's breathing less di- 

10 vinely whispering than thy Arcadian melodies, when, 
in tones worthy of Arden, thou didst chant that song 
sung by Amiens to the banished Duke, which proclaims 
the winter wind more lenient than for a man to be un- 
grateful. Thy sire was old surly M , the unap- 

15 proachable churchwarden of Bishopsgate. He knew 
not what he did, when he begat thee, like spring, gentle 
offspring of blustering winter : — only unfortunate in 
thy ending, which should have been mild, conciliatory, 
swan-like. 

20 Much remains to sing. Many fantastic shapes rise 
up, but they must be mine in private : — already I have 
fooled the reader to the top of his bent; — else could 
I omit that strange creature WooUett, who existed in 



1. franks: signatures that exempt mail-matter from payment 
of postage. 

9. pastoral: shepherd-like; hence simple. M : Thomas 

Maynard, a clerk in the South- Sea House. See Lamb's Key and 
cf. lines 17-18. a flute's breathing, etc.: freely paraphrased, the 
soft breathing of the flute whispers a melody less divine than 
thy Arcadian melody. 

22. top of his bent: to the limit of his desire. Cf. "Hamlet," 
III, ii, 30. 

23. who existed in trying the question: found his chief pleasure 
in law suits; actually bought the legal claims of others, that he 
might have the pleasure of the legal contest himself. 



THE SOUTH-SEA HOUSE 13 

trying the question, and bought litigations f — and still 
stranger, inimitable, solemn Hepwortli, from whose 
gravity Newton might have deduced the law of gravi- 
tation. How profoundly would he nib a pen — with 
what deliberation would he wet a wafer! 5 

But it is time to close — night's wheels are rattling 
fast over me — it is proper to have done with this sol- 
emn mockery. 

Reader, what if I have been playing with thee all this 
while — peradventure the very names, which I have sum- 10 
moned up before thee, are fantastic — insubstantial — like 
Henry Pimpernel, and old John Naps of Greece : 

Be satisfied that something answering to them has had 
a being. Their importance is from the past. 



4. nib a pen: to put a point on a quiU pen. 

5. a wafer: a thin disk of gummed paper or of paste used to 
seal letters, or receive the impression of a seal. 



II. CHRIST'S HOSPITAL FIVE-AND-THIRTY 

YEARS AGO 

In Mr. Lamb's '^ Works/' published a year or two 
since, I find a magnificent eulogy on my old school/ 
such as it was, or now appears to him to have been, 
between the years 1782 and 1789. It happens, very 
5 oddly, that my own standing at Christ's was nearly 
corresponding with his; and, with all gratitude to him 
for his enthusiasm for the cloisters, I think he has 
contrived to bring together whatever can be said in 
praise of them, dropping all the other side of the argu- 

10 ment most ingeniously. 

I remember L. at school; and can well recollect that 
he had some peculiar advantages, which I and others of 
his schoolfellows had not. His friends lived in town, 
and were near at hand; and he had the privilege of 

15 going to see them, almost as often as he wished, through 
some invidious distinction, which was denied to us. The 
present worthy sub-treasurer to the Inner Temple can 
explain how that happened. He had his tea and hot 
rolls in the morning, while we were battening upon 

20 our quarter of a penny loaf — our crug — moistened with 
attenuated small beer, in wooden piggins, smacking of 

1 " Recollections of Christ's Hospital." 

11. L.: Lamb. Elia, in the person of Coleridge, is speaking. 
21. small beer: beer containing little alcohol (1.28 per cent), 
attenuated: diluted. 
14 



CHEIST'S HOSPITAL 15 

the pitched leathern jack it was poured from. Our 
Monday's milk porritch, blue and tasteless, and the 
pease soup of Saturday, coarse and choking, were en- 
riched for him with a slice of ^' extraordinary bread 
and butter," from the hot-loaf of the Temple. The 5 
Wednesday's mess of millet, somewhat less repugnant — 
(we had three banyan to four meat days in the week) 
— was endeared to his palate with a lump of double- 
refined, and a smack of ginger (to make it go down 
the more glibly) or the fragrant cinnamon. In lieu 10 
of our half-pickled Sundays, or quite fresh boiled beef 
on Thursdays (strong as caro equina), with detestable 
marigolds floating in the pail to poison the broth — our 
scanty mutton scrags on Fridays — and rather more sav- 
ory, but grudging, portions of the same flesh, rotten- 15 
roasted or rare, on the Tuesdays (the only dish which 
excited our appetites, and disappointed our stomachs, 
in almost equal proportion) — he had his hot plate of 
roast veal, or the more tempting griskin (exotics un- 
known to our palates), cooked in the paternal kitchen 20 
(a great thing), and brought him daily by his maid 
or aunt! I remember the good old relative (in whom 
love forbade pride) squatting down upon some odd 
stone in a by-nook of the cloisters, disclosing the viands 



I. pitched leathern jack: the leather jug coated with pitch. 

7. banyan days: the sailor's term for days when no meat is 
served. Banyas, Hindu traders who abstain from meat. 
8-9. double-refined: sugar. 

II. half -pickled: beef half corned. 
12. caro equina: horse flesh. 

14. scrags: lean or bony pieces of meat. 

15-16. rotten-roasted: over-done; roasted till it falls to 
pieces. 

19. griskin: the back, or chine, of a hog. exotics: things 
brought in from abroad; strange. 



16 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

(of higher regale than those cates which the ravens 
ministered to the Tishbite) ; and the contending pas- 
sions- of L. at the unfolding. There was love for the 
bringer; shame for the thing brought, and the manner 
5 of its bringing ; sympathy for those w^ho were too many 
to share in it; and, at top of all, hunger (eldest, strong- 
est of the passions!) predominant, breaking down the 
stony fences of shame, and awkwardness, and a trou- 
bling over-consciousness. 

10 I was a poor friendless boy. My parents, and those 
who should care for me, were far away. Those few 
acquaintances of theirs, w^hich they could reckon upon 
being kind to me in the great city, after a little forced 
notice, which they had the grace to take of me on my 

15 first arrival in town, soon grew tired of my holiday 
visits. They seemed to them to recur too often, though 
I thought them few enough; and, one after another, 
they all failed me, and I felt myself alone among six 
hundred playmates. 

20 the cruelty of separating a poor lad from his early 
homestead ! The yearnings which I used to have toward 
it in those unfledged years ! How, in my dreams, would 
my native town (far in the west) come back, with its 
church, and trees, and faces ! How I would wake weep- 

25 ing, and in the anguish of my heart exclaim upon sweet 
Calne in AA^ltshire! 

To this late hour of my life, I trace impressions left 
by the recollection of those friendless holidays. The 
long warm days of summer never return but they bring 



1. regale: sumptuous feast, cates: delicacies. 

2. Tishbite: Elijah. For the reference, see I Kings, xvii, 1-6. 

26. Calne in Wiltshire: a deliberate misstatement, with pur- 
pose to mystify the reader. Coleridge's home was Ottery St. 
Mary, in Devonshire. 



CHKIST'S HOSPITAL 17 

with them a gloom from the haunting memory of those 
whole-day-leaves, when, by some strange arrangement, 
we were turned out, for the live-long day, upon our own 
hands, whether we had friends to go to, or none. I 
remember those bathing-excursions to the New-River, 5 
which L. recalls with such relish, better, I think, than 
he can — for he was a home-seeking lad, and did not 
much care for such water-pastures: — How merrily we 
would sally forth into the fields; and strip under the 
first warmth of the sun; and w^anton like young dace 10 
in the streams; getting us appetites for noon, which 
those of us that were penniless (our scanty morning 
crust long since exhausted) had not the means of allay- 
ing — while the cattle, and the birds, and the fishes, were 
at feed about us, and we had nothing to satisfy our 15 
cravings — the very beauty of the day, and the exercise 
of the pastime, and the sense of liberty, setting a keener 
edge upon them! — How faint and languid, finally, we 
would return, toward night-fall, to our desired morsel, 
half -rejoicing, half -reluctant, that the hours of our un- 20 
easy liberty had expired! 

It was worse in the days of winter, to go prowling 
about the streets objectless — shivering at cold windows of 
print-shops, to extract a little amusement ; or haply, as a 
last resort, in the hope of a little novelty, to pay a fifty- 25 
times repeated visit (where our individual faces should be 
as well known to the warden as those of his own charges) 
to the Lions in the Tower — to whose levee, by courtesy 
immemorial, we had a prescriptive title to admission. 

L.'s governor (so we called the patron who pre- 30 



28. levee: reception. 

30. L.'s governor: Samuel Salt. See essay on "The Old Bench- 
ers of the Inner Temple," where he is described at length; also 
note on page 2G7. 



18 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

sented us to the foundation) lived in a manner under 
his paternal roof. Any complaint which he had to make 
was sure of being attended to. This was understood 
at Christ's, and was an effectual screen to him against 
5 the severity of masters, or worse tyranny of the moni- 
tors. The oppressions of these young brutes are heart- 
sickening to call to recollection. I have been called 
out of my bed, and waked for the purpose, in the cold- 
est winter nights — and this not once, but night after 

10 night — in my shirt, to receive the discipline of a leathern 
thong, with eleven other sufferers, because it pleased 
my callow overseer, when there has been any talking 
heard after we were gone to bed, to make the six last 
beds in the dormitory, where the youngest children of 

15 us slept, answerable for an offence they neither dared 
to commit, nor had the power to hinder. The same 
execrable tyranny drove the younger part of us from 
the fires, when our feet were perishing with snow; and, 
under the crudest penalties, forbade the indulgence of 

20 a drink of water, when we lay in sleepless summer 
nights, fevered with the season, and the day's sports. 

There was one H , w^ho, I learned, in after days, 

was seen expiating some maturer offence in the hulks. 
(Do I flatter myself in fancying that this might be the 

25 planter of that name, who suffered — at Nevis, I think, 
or St. Kits, — some few years since? My friend To- 
bin was the benevolent instrument of bringing him 
to the gallows.) This petty Nero actually branded a 
boy, who had offended him, with a red-hot iron; and 



I. presented us to the foundation: gained admittance for us 
to the school (the foundation of Edward VI). 

5-6. monitors: senior pupils in charge of the younger. 

22. one H . See Lamb's Key in the Introduction. 

23. hulks: prison ships. 



CHRIST'S HOSPITAL 19 

nearly starved forty of us, with exacting contributions, 
to the one half of our bread, to pamper a young ass, 
which, incredible as it may seem, with the connivance 
of the nurse's daughter (a young flame of his) he had 
contrived to smuggle in, and keep upon the leads of 5 
the ward, as they called our dormitories. This game 
went on for better than a week, till the foolish beast, 
not able to fare well but he must cry roast meat— hap- 
pier than Caligula's minion, could he have kept his own 
counsel— but, f oolisher, alas ! than any of his species in 10 
the fables— waxing fat, and kicking, in the fulness of 
bread, one unlucky minute would needs proclaim his 
good fortune to the world below; and, laying out his 
simple throat, blew such a ram's horn blast, as (top- 
pling down the walls of his own Jericho) set conceal- 15 
ment any longer at defiance. The client was dismissed, 
with certain attentions, to Smithfield; but I never un- 
derstood that the patron underwent any censure on the 
occasion. This was in the stewardship of L.'s admired 
Perry. ^^ 

Under the same facile administration, can L. have 
forgotten the cool impunity with which the nurses used 
to carry away openly, in open platters, for their own 
tables, one out of two of every hot joint, which the 
careful matron had been seeing scrupulously weighed 25 
out for our dinners? These things were daily prac- 



5-6. leads of the ward: roof of the dormitory. 

11. waxing fat, and kicking. Cf. Deuteronomy, xxxii, 15; also 
see " Grace before Meat/' page 132, line 12. 

14-15. (toppling down the walls of his own Jericho.) Cf. 
Joshua, vi, 5. 

16. client: here meaning the ass. Smithfield is the London 
stock market. 

21. facile: easy-going. 



20 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

ticed in that magnificent apartment, which L. (grown 
connoisseur since, we presume) praises so highly for the 
grand paintings " by Verrio, and others," with which 
it is '' hung round and adorned/' But the sight of 
5 sleek well-fed blue-coat boys in pictures was, at that 
time, I believe, little consolatory to him, or us, the 
living ones, who saw the better part of our provisions 
carried away before our faces by harpies ; and ourselves 
reduced (with the Trojan in the hall of Dido) 

10 To feed our mind with idle portraiture. 

L. has recorded the repugnance of the school to gags^ 
or the fat of fresh beef boiled ; and sets it down to some 
superstition. But these unctuous morsels are never 
grateful to young palates (children are universally fat- 
15 haters), and in strong, coarse, boiled meats, unsalted^ 
are detestable. A gag-eater in our time was equivalent 

to a go2il, and held in equal detestation. suffered 

under the imputation : 

'Twas said, 

20 He ate strange flesh. 

He was observed, after dinner, carefully to gather up 
the remnants left at his table (not many, nor very 
choice fragments, you may credit me) — and, in an espe- 
cial manner, these disreputable morsels, which he would 
25 convey away, and secretly stow in the settle that stood 
at his bed-side. None saw when he ate them. It was 



9. Trojan in the hall of Dido: -^neas in Queen Dido's palace 
at Carthage. Cf. Virgil's " ^neid," I, 464, ff. 

17. goul: a ghoul; a spirit supposed to prey on dead bodies; 
hence, in general, something fiendish or unnatural. 

19. Cf. " Antony and Cleopatra," I, iv, 6. 



CHRIST'S HOSPITAL 21 

rumored that he privately devoured them in the night. 
He was watched, but no traces of such midnight prac- 
tices were discoverable. Some reported, that, on leave- 
days, he had been seen to carry out of the bounds a 
large blue check handkerchief, full of something. This 5 
then must be the accursed thing. Conjecture next was 
at work to imagine how he could dispose of it. Some 
said he sold it to the beggars. This belief generally 
prevailed. He went about moping. None spake to him. 
No one would play with him. He was excommunicated ; 10 
put out of the pale of the school. He was too powerful 
a boy to be beaten, but he underwent every mode of 
that negative punishment, which is more grievous than 
many stripes. Still he persevered. At length he was 
observed by two of his school-fellows, who were deter- 15 
mined to get at the secret, and had traced him one 
leave-day for that purpose, to enter a large worn-out 
building, such as there exist specimens of in Chancery- 
lane, which are let out to various scales of pauperism 
with open door, and a common staircase. After him 20 
they silently slunk in, and followed by stealth up four 
flights, and saw him tap at a poor wicket, which was 
opened by an aged woman, meanly clad. Suspicion was 
now ripened into certainty. The informers had secured 
their victim.' They had him in their toils. Accusation 25 
was formally preferred, and retribution most signal was 
looked for. Mr. Hathaway, the then steward (for this 
happened a little after my time) with that patient sagac- 
ity which tempered all his conduct, determined to inves- 
tigate the matter, before he proceeded to sentence. The 30 
result was, that the supposed mendicants, the receivers 
or purchasers of the mysterious scraps, turned out to 



11. out of the pale: allowed no social intercourse with the boys. 



22 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

be the parents of , an honest couple come to decay, 

— whom this seasonable supply had, in all probability, 
saved from mendicancy; and that this young stork, at 
the expense of his own good name, had all this while 
5 been only feeding the old birds ! The governors on this 
occasion, much to their honor, voted a present relief to 

the family of , and presented him with a silver 

medal. The lesson which the steward read upon rash 
JUDGMENT, on the occasion of publicly delivering the 

10 medal to , I believe, would not be lost upon his 

auditory. I had left school then, but I well remember 

. He was a tall, shambling youth, with a cast in 

his eye, not at all calculated to conciliate hostile preju- 
dices. I have since seen him carrying a baker's basket. 

15 I think I heard he did not do quite so well by himself, 
as he had done by the old folks. 

I was a hypochondriac lad; and a sight of a boy in 
fetters, upon the day of my first putting on the blue 
clothes, was not exactly fitted to assuage the natural 

20 terrors of initiation. I was of tender years, barely 
turned of seven ; and 'had only read of such things in 
books, or seen them but in dreams. I was told he had 
run away. This was the punishment for the first offence. 
As a novice I was soon after taken to see the dungeons. 

25 These were little, square. Bedlam cells, where a boy 
could just lie at his length upon straw and a blanket — 
a mattress, I think, was afterwards substituted — with a 
peep of light, let in askance, from a prison-orifice at 
top, barely enough to read by. Here the poor boy was 

30 locked in by himself all day, without sight of any but 
the porter who brought him his bread and water — ivho 
might not speak to him; or of the beadle, who came 



3. young stork. Young storks are said to care for the old. 



CHRIST'S HOSPITAL 23 

twice a week to call him out to receive his periodical 
chastisement, which was almost welcome, because it sepa- 
rated him for a brief interval from solitude : — and here 
he was shut up by himself of nights^ out of the reach 
of any sound, to suffer whatever horrors the weak nerves, 5 
and superstition incident to his time of life, might sub- 
ject him to.^ This was the penalty for the second of- 
fence. Wouldst thou like, reader, to see what became 
of him in the next degree? 

The culprit, who had been a third time an offender, 10 
and whose expulsion was at this time deemed irreversi- 
ble, was brought forth, as at some solemn auto da fe, 
arrayed in uncouth and most appalling attire — all trace 
of his late '^ watchet weeds '^ carefully effaced, he was 
exposed in a jacket, resembling those which London 15 
lamplighters formerly delighted in, with a cap of the 
same. The effect of this divestiture was such as the 
ingenious devisers of it could have anticipated. With 
his pale and frighted features, it was as if some of 
those disfigurements in Dante had seized upon him. In 20 
this disguisement he was brought into the hall {L.^s 
favorite state-room) , where awaited him the whole num- 

1 One or two instances of lunacy, or attempted suicide, accord- 
ingly, at length convinced the governors of the impolicy of this 
part of the sentence, and the midnight torture to the spirits was 
dispensed with. This fancy of dungeons for children was a sprout 
of Howard's brain, for which (saving the reverence due to Holy 
Paul), methinks, I could willingly spit upon his statue. 



12. auto da fe: act of faith. See note on San Benito, page 249. 

14. "watchet weeds": light-blue clothes. 

17. divestiture: removal of his blue coat (and substitution of 
the grotesque jacket). 

20. disfigurements in Dante: the horrors of Hell which Dante, 
the Italian poet, depicts in his "Inferno" (1300). 

21-22. L.'s favorite state-room: reference to Lamb's praise of 
the great hall in his former essay. 



24 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

ber of his school-fellows, whose joint lessons and sports 
he w^as thenceforth to share no more ; the awful presence 
of the steward, to be seen for the last time; of the 
executioner beadle, clad in his state robe for the occa- 
5 sion; and of two faces more, of direr import, because 
never but in these extremities visible. These were gov- 
ernors ; two of whom, by choice, or charter, were always 
accustomed to officiate at these Ultima Siipplicia; not 
to mitigate (so at least w^e understood it), but to enforce 

10 the uttermost stripe. Old Bamber Gascoigne, and Peter 
Aubert, I remember, were colleagues on one occasion, 
when the beadle turning rather pale, a glass of brandy 
was ordered to prepare him for the mysteries. The 
scourging w^as, after the old Roman fashion, long and 

15 stately. The lictor accompanied the criminal quite 
round the hall. We were generally too faint with 
attending to the previous disgusting circumstances, to 
make accurate report with our eyes of the degree of 
corporal suffering inflicted. Report, of course, gave out 

20 the back knotty and livid. After scourging, he was 
made over, in his San Benito^ to his friends, if he had 
any (but commonly such poor runagates were friend- 
less), or to his parish officer, who, to enhance the effect 
of the scene, had his station allotted to him on the 

25 outside of the hall gate. 

These solemn pageantries were not played off so often 
as to spoil the general mirth of the community. "We 
had plenty of exercise and recreation after school hours ; 
and, for myself, I must confess, that I was never hap- 

30 pier, than in them. The Upper and the Lower Gram- 
mar Schools were held in the same room; and an im- 



8. Ultima Supplicia: extreme punishments. 

15. lictor: a Eoman official who bore the fasces and admin- 
istered punishments; here, the beadle. See note on page 250. 



CHEIST'S HOSPITAL 25 

aginary line only divided their bounds. Their character 
was as different as that of the inhabitants on the two 
sides of the Pyrenees. The Rev. James Boyer was the 
Upper Master; but the Eev. Matthew Field presided 
over that portion of the apartment of which I had the 5 
good fortune to be a member. "We lived a life as care- 
less as birds. "We talked and did just what we pleased, 
and nobody molested us. AVe carried an accidence, or a 
grammar, for form; but, for any trouble it gave us, w^e 
might take two years in getting through the verbs de- 10 
ponent, and another two in forgetting all that we had 
learned about them. There was now and then the for- 
mality of saying a lesson, but if you had not learned 
it, a brush across the shoulders (just enough to disturb 
a fly) w^as the sole remonstrance. Field never used the 15 
rod; and in truth he wielded the cane wdth no great 
good- will — holding it '^ like a dancer." It looked in 
his hands rather like an emblem than an instrument 
of authority; and an emblem, too, he was ashamed of. 
He was a good easy man, that did not care to ruffle his 20 
own peace, nor perhaps set any great consideration 
upon the value of juvenile time. He came among us, 
now and then, but often stayed away whole days from 
us; and when he came, it made no difference to us — he 
had his private room to retire to, the short time he stayed, 25 
to be out of the sound of our noise. Our mirth and 
uproar went on. W"e had classics of our own, w^ithout 
being beholden to '' insolent Greece or haughty Rome," 
that passed current among us — Peter Wilkins — the Ad- 



2-3. inhabitants on the two sides of the Pyrenees: the French 
and the Spaniards. 

8. accidence: rudimentary grammar containing the inflections. 
17. "like a dancer." From " Antony and Cleopatra," III, ii, 36. 
28. "insolent Greece or haughty Rome": Ben Jonson. 



26 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

ventures of the Hon. Capt. Robert Boyle — the Fortunate 
Blue Coat Boy — and the like. Or we cultivated a turn 
for mechanic or scientific operations; making little sun- 
dials of paper ; or weaving those ingenious parentheses, 
5 called cat-cradles; or making dry peas to dance upon 
the end of a tin pipe; or studying the art military 
over that laudable game '' French and English/' and 
a hundred other such devices to pass away the time — 
mixing the useful with the agreeable — as would have 

10 made the souls of Rousseau and John Locke chuckle 
to have seen us. 

Matthew Field belonged to that class of modest di- 
vines who affect to mix in equal proportion the gentle- 
man, the scholar, and the Christian; but, I know not 

15 how, the first ingredient is generally found to be the 
predominating dose in the composition. He was en- 
gaged in gay parties, or with his courtly bow at some 
episcopal levee, when he should have been attending 
upon us. He had for many years the classical charge 

20 of a hundred children, during the four or five first 
years of their education ; and his very highest form sel- 
dom proceeded further than two or three of the intro- 
ductory fables of Phasdrus. How things were suffered 
to go on thus, I cannot guess. Boyer, who was the 

25 proper person to have remedied these abuses, always 
affected, perhaps felt, a delicacy in interfering in a 
province not strictly his own. I have not been without 
my suspicions, that he was not altogether displeased at 
the contrast we presented to his end of the school. We 

30 were a sort of Helots to his young Spartans. He would 
sometimes, with ironic deference, send to borrow a rod 



7. "French and English": tug-of-war. 
18. episcopal levee: bishop's reception. 



CHEIST'S HOSPITAL 27 

of the Under Master, and then, with sardonic grin, ob- 
serve to one of his upper boys, '^ how neat and fresh 
the twigs looked/' While his pale students were bat- 
tering their brains over Xenophon and Plato, with a 
silence as deep as that enjoined by the Samite, we were 5 
enjoying ourselves at our ease in our little Goshen. We 
saw a little into the secrets of his discipline, and the 
prospect did but the more reconcile us to our lot. His 
thunders rolled innocuous for us ; his storms came near, 
but never touched us; contrary to Gideon's miracle, 10 
while all around were drenched, our fleece was dry.^ 
His boys turned out the better scholars; we, I suspect, 
have the advantage in temper. His pupils cannot speak 
of him without something of terror allaying their 
gratitude; the remembrance of Field comes back 15 
with all the soothing images of indolence, and sum- 
mer slumbers, and work like play, and innocent idle- 
ness, and Elysian exemptions, and life itself a ^' playing 
holiday. ' ' 

Though sufficiently removed from the jurisdiction of 20 
Boyer, we were near enough (as I have said) to under- 
stand a little of his system. AVe occasionally heard 
sounds of the TJlulantes, and caught glances of Tartarus. 
B. was a rabid pedant. His English style was cramped 
to barbarism. His Easter anthems (for his duty obliged 25 

1 Cowley. 

9. thunders rolled innocuous for us: his bursts of anger passed 
harmlessly over us. 

10. Gideon^s miracle. Cf. Judges, vi, 36-40. 

18. Elysian exemptions: freedom like that enjoyed in Elysium, 
paradise. 

23. TJlulantes: the howling ones. Tartarus: Hades. 

24. rabid pedant: one who excitedly insists on trifling points 
of scholarship. Lamb may use the word pedant in its obsolete 
sense of schoolmaster. 



28 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

him to those periodical flights) were grating as scrannel 
pipes.^ He wouki laugh, ay, and heartily, but then it 
must be at Flaccus^s quibble about Bex — or at the tris'is 
severitas in vidlu, or inspicere in patinas^ of Terence 

5 — thin jests, which at their first broaching could hardly 
have had vis enough to move a Koman muscle. — He had 
two wigs, both pedantic, but of differing omen. The one 
serene, smiling, fresh powdered, betokening a mild day. 
The other, an old discolored, unkempt, angry caxon, de- 

10 noting frequent and bloody execution. AVoe to the 
school, when he made his morning appearance in his 
passy, or passionate wig. No comet expounded surer. — 
J. B. had a heavy hand. I have known him double his 
knotty fist at a poor trembling child (the maternal milk 

15 hardly dry upon its lips) with a " Sirrah, do you pre- 

1 In this and everything B. was the antipodes of his coadjutor. 
While the former was digging his brains for crude anthems, 
worth a pignut, F. would be recreating his gentlemanly fancy in 
the more flowery walks of the Muses. A little dramatic effusion 
of his, under the name of Vertumnus and Pomona, is not yet 
forgotten by the chroniclers of that sort of literature. It was 
accepted by Garrick, but the town did not give it their sanction. 
B. used to say of it, in a way of half-compliment, half-irony, that 
it was too classical for representation. 



1-2. grating as scrannel pipes: harsh as thin pipes. Cf. Milton's 
"Lycidas," 124. 

3-4. tristis severitas in vultu: harsh severity of his face. 

4. inspicere in patinas: to look into the plates. 

6. vis: force. 

9. caxon: a wig of the eighteenth century. 

12. no comet expounded surer. Comets were thought to proph- 
esy disaster. 

15. Sirrah: fellow. A term used to inferiors, as "Sir" is used 
to superiors. 

Footnote, line 1. antipodes of his coadjutor: the exact oppo- 
site of his colleague, Field. While Boyer was writing poor, 
heavy anthems. Field would be composing more flowery poems. 



CHEIST'S HOSPITAL 29 

sume to set your wits at me? " Nothing was more 
common than to see him make a headlong entry into 
the school-room, from his inner recess, or library, and, 
with turbulent eye, singling out a lad, roar out, '' Od's 
my life, sirrah '' (his favorite adjuration), " I have a 5 
great mind to whip you, ^^ — then, with as sudden a re- 
tracting impulse, fling back into his lair — and, after a 
cooling lapse of some minutes (during which all but the 
culprit had totally forgotten the context) drive head- 
long out again, piecing out his imperfect sense, as if it 10 
had been some Devil's Litany, with the expletory yell — 
^^ and I wiLL^ too/^ — In his gentler moods, when the 
rabidus furor was assuaged, he had resort to an ingen- 
ious method, peculiar, for what I have heard, to him- 
self, of whipping the boy, and reading the Debates, at 15 
the same time ; a paragraph, and a lash between ; which 
in those times, when parliamentary oratory w^as most 
at a height and flourishing in these realms, was not 
calculated to impress the patient with a veneration for 
the diffuser graces of rhetoric. 20 

Once, and but once, the uplifted rod was known to 
fall ineffectual from his hand — when droll squinting 

W , having been caught putting the inside of the 

master 's desk to a use for which the architect had clearly 
not designed it, to justify himself, with great simplicity 25 
averred, that he did not knoiv that the thing had been 
forewarned. This exquisite irrecognition of any law 
antecedent to the oral or declaratory^ struck so irre- 

4-5. Od^s my life: a corruption of "As God is my life/' 
6-7. retracting impulse: change of mind. 
IL Litany: a form of responsive prayer. 
13. rabidus furor: mad fury. 
15. Debates: the debates in Parliament. 

27-28. Failure to recognize anything as wrong against which no 
specific rule had been stated. 



30 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

sistibly upon the fancy of all who heard it (the peda- 
gogue himself not excepted) that remission was un- 
avoidable. 

L. has given credit to B/s great merits as an in- 
5 structor. Coleridge, in his Literary Life, has pro- 
nounced a more intelligible and ample encomium on 
them. The author of the Country Spectator doubts not 
to compare him with the ablest teachers of antiquity. 
Perhaps we cannot dismiss him better than with the 

10 pious ejaculation of C when he heard that his old 

master was on his death-bed — ' ' Poor J. B. ! — may all his 
faults be forgiven; and may he be wafted to bliss by 
little cherub boys, all head and wings, with no hottoms 
to reproach his sublunary infirmities.'' 

15 Under him were many good and sound scholars bred. 
First Grecian of my time was Lancelot Pepys Stevens, 
kindest of boys and men, since Co-grammar-master (and 

inseparable companion) with Dr. T e. What an 

edifying spectacle did this brace of friends present to 

20 those who remembered the anti-socialities of their prede- 
cessors ! You never met the one by chance in the street 
without a wonder, which was quickly dissipated by the 
almost immediate sub-appearance of the other. General- 
ly arm in arm, these kindly coadjutors lightened for each 

25 other the toilsome duties of their profession, and when, 
in advanced age, one found it convenient to retire, the 
other was not long in discovering that it suited him to 
lay down the fasces also. Oh, it is pleasant, as it is 



7. author of the Country Spectator: Bishop Middleton. (See 
page 31, lines 8-9.) 

13-14. To recall with reproach his earthly weakness for whip- 
ping. 

16. Grecian: the highest class (proficient in Greek). 

18. Dr. T e: Dr. Trollope, Boyer's successor. 



CHKIST'S HOSPITAL 31 

rare, to find the same arm linked in yours at forty, 
which at thirteen helped it to turn over the Cicero De 
Amicitia, or some tale of Antique Friendship, which the 
young heart even then was burning to anticipate! Co- 

Greeian with S. was Th , who has since executed 5 

with ability various diplomatic functions at the North- 
ern courts. Th was a tall, dark, saturnine youth, 

sparing of speech, with raven locks. Thomas Fanshaw 
Middleton followed him (now Bishop of Calcutta), a 
scholar and a gentleman in his teens. He has the repu- 10 
tation of an excellent critic; and is author (besides the 
Country Spectator) of a Treatise on the Greek Article, 
against Sharpe. M. is said to bear his mitre high in 
India, where the regiii novitas (I dare say) sufficiently 
justifies the bearing. A humility quite as primitive as 15 
that of Jewel or Hooker might not be exactly fitted to 
impress the minds of those Anglo- Asiatic diocesans with 
a reverence for home institutions, and the church which 
those fathers watered. The manners of M. at school, 
though firm, were mild and unassuming. Next to M. 20 
(if not senior to him) was Richards, author of the 
Aboriginal Britons, the most spirited of the Oxford 



2. Cicero (106-43 B.C.) On Friendship. 

5. Th : Thornton. (Note Lamb's deliberate misstatement. 

Thornton, afterwards knighted, was minister to Portugal and 
Brazil — southern courts.) 

7. saturnine: gloomy; morose; born under the planet Saturn; 
hence, partaking of the supposed influence of this planet. 

13. bear his mitre high: mitre, the head-dress worn by a 
bishop; hence, figuratively, the power of a bishop. The meaning 
is, to use his power as bishop with a high hand. 

14. regni novitas: newness of rule. Cf. " ^neid," I, 563. A 
newly created authority must be firm to inspire respect. 

17. Anglo- Asiatic diocesans: priests (or members) of the Eng- 
lish Church in Asia (India). 



32 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

Prize Poems; a pale, studious Grecian. Then followed 
poor S , ill-fated M ! of these the Muse is silent. 

Finding some of Edward's race 
Unhappy, pass their annals by. 

5 Come back into memory, like as thou wert in the day- 
spring of thy fancies, with hope like a fiery column 
before thee — the dark pillar not yet turned — Samuel 
Taylor Coleridge — Logician, Metaphysician, Bard ! — 
How have I seen the casual passer through the Clois- 

10 ters stand still, entranced with admiration (while he 
w^eighed the disproportion between the speech and the 
garb of the young Mirandula), to hear thee unfold, in 
thy deep and sweet intonations, the mysteries of Jam- 
blichus, or Plotinus (for even in those years thou wax- 

15 edst not pale at such philosophic draughts), or reciting 
Homer in his Greek, or Pindar — while the. walls of the 
old Grey Friars re-echoed to the accents of the inspired 
charity-boy! — Many were the '' wit-combats " (to dally 
awhile with the words of old Fuller) between him and. 

20 C. V. Le G , '^ which two I behold like a Spanish 

great galleon, and an English man-of-war; Master Cole- 
ridge, like the former, was built far higher in learning, 
solid, but slow in liis performances. C. V. L., with the 
English man-of-war, lesser in bulk, but lighter in sail- 

25 ing, could turn with all tides, tack about, and take ad- 
vantage of all winds, by the quickness of his wit and 
invention. ' ' 



2. poor S : Scott, who died in an asylum, ill-fated M ■ : 

Maunde, expelled from school. 

6-7. fiery column . . . dark pillar. See Exodus, xiii, 21-22. 

17. old Grey Friars. The school was originally the Grey Friars' 
Monastery. 

21. galleon: a sixteenth century three-decker. 



CHRIST'S HOSPITAL 33 

Nor shalt thou, their compeer, be quickly forgotten, 
Allen, with the cordial smile, and still more cordial 
laugh, with which thou wert wont to make the old 
Cloisters shake, in thy cognition of some poignant jest 
of theirs; or the anticipation of some more material, 5 
and, peradventure, practical one, of thine own. Ex- 
tinct are those smiles, with that beautiful countenance, 
with w^hich (for thou wert the Nireiis formosus of the 
school), in the days of thy maturer waggery, thou didst 
disarm the wrath of infuriated town-damsel, who, in- 10 
censed by provoking pinch, turning tigress-like round, 
suddenly converted by thy angel-look, exchanged the 

half-formed terrible '' bl ," for a gentler greeting 

— '^ hless thy handsome face! '^ 

Next follow two, who ought to be now alive, and the 15 

friends of Elia — the junior Le G and F ; who 

impelled, the former by a roving temper, the latter by 
too quick a sense of neglect — ill capable of enduring 
the slights poor Sizars are sometimes subject to in our 
seats of learning — exchanged their Alma Mater for the 20 
camp ; perishing, one by climate, and one on the plains of 

Salamanca : — Le G , sanguine, volatile, sweet-na- 

tured; F , dogged, faithful, anticipative of insult, 

warm-hearted, with something of the old Roman height 
about him. 25 

Fine, frank-hearted Fr , the present master of 

Hertford, with Marmaduke T , mildest of Mission- 
aries — and both my good friends still — close the cata- 
logue of Grecians in my time. 



13. "bl ": probably "blast." 

16. junior Le G : Samuel Le Grice. 

23. F : Samuel Favell, killed in the Peninsular Campaign 

at the Battle of Sahimanca, Spain, 1812. 

26. Fr : Franklin. 27. T : Thompson. 



III. THE TWO RACES OF MEN 

The human species, according to the best theory I can 
form of it, is composed of two distinct races, the men 
who borrow^ and the men who lend. To these two orig- 
inal diversities may be reduced all those impertinent 
5 classifications of Gothic and Celtic tribes, white men, 
black men, red men. All the dwellers upon earth, 
'' Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites,'' flock hither, 
and do naturally fall in with one or other of these pri- 
mary distinctions. The infinite superiority of the for- 

10 mer, which I choose to designate as the great race, is 
discernible in their figure, port, and a certain instinctive 
sovereignty. The latter are born degraded. '' He shall 
serve his brethren.'' There is something in the air of 
one of this cast, lean and suspicious; contrasting with 

15 the open, trusting, generous manners of the other. 

Observe who have been the greatest borrowers of 
all ages — Alcibiades — Falstaff — Sir Richard Steele — our 
late incomparable Brinsley — what a family likeness in 
all four! 

20 What a careless, even deportment hath your borrower ! 
what rosy gills! what a beautiful reliance on Provi- 



4. impertinent: trifling; unimportant. (Rare use.) 

6-7. See Acts, ii, 9. 

12-13. See Genesis, ix, 25. 

21. rosy gills: here used humorously to define the flesh about 
the chin. The prosperity of the borrower is shown by his fleshy 
" double-chin." 
34 



THE TWO RACES OF MEN 35 

dence doth he manifest, — taking no more thought than 
lilies! What contempt for money, — accounting it (yours 
and mine especially) no better than dross! What a 
liberal confounding of those pedantic distinctions of 
meiim and tuitm! or rather, what a noble simplification 5 
of language (beyond Tooke), resolving these supposed 
opposites into one clear, intelligible pronoun adjective ! 
— What near approaches doth he make to the primitive 
community, — to the extent of one half of the principal 
at least !— 10 

He is the true taxer who ^' calleth all the world up 
to be taxed ''; and the distance is as vast between him 
and one of ns, as subsisted betwixt the Augustan Majesty 
and the poorest obolary Jew that paid it tribute-pittance 
at Jerusalem ! — His exactions, too, have such a cheerful, 15 
voluntary air! So far removed from your sour paro- 
chial or state-gatherers, — those ink-horn varlets, who 
carry their want of welcome in their faces ! He cometh 
to you with a smile, and troubleth you with no receipt; 
confining himself to no set season. Every day is his 20 
Candlemas, or his Feast of Holy Michael. He applieth 
the lene tormentnm of a pleasant look to your purse, — 



1-2. Cf. Matthew, vi, 28. 

5. meum and tuum: mine and thine. 

8-9. primitive community: where all things are held in common. 
Cf. Acts, ii, 44-45. The borrower, however (line 9), applies the 
community plan to your half the capital, not surrendering his 
own. 

11-12. " calleth all the world up to be taxed." Cf . Luke, ii, 1. 

13. one of us: one of the lenders. Augustan Majesty: Augustus 
Caesar, who called up the world to be taxed. 

14. obolary: having only obols, small Greek coins, worth three 
cents; hence, very poor. 

17. ink-horn varlets: scribbling under-clerks, or collectors. 
22. lene tormentum: gentle stimulus. Cf. Horace, "Odes," III, 
21, 13. 



36 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

which to that gentle warmth expands her silken leaves, 
as naturally as the cloak of the traveler, for which sun 
and wind contended! He is the true Propontic which 
never ebbeth ! The sea which taketh handsomely at 
5 each man's hand. In vain the victim, whom he de- 
lighteth to honor, struggles with destiny; he is in the 
net. Lend therefore cheerfully, man ordained to 
lend — that thou lose not in the end, with thy worldly 
penny, the reversion promised. Combine not prepos- 

10 terously in thine own person the penalties of Lazarus 
and of Dives ! — but, when thou seest the proper author- 
ity coming, meet it smilingly, as it were half-way. 
Come, a handsome sacrifice ! See how light he makes 
of it ! Strain not courtesies with a noble enemy. 

15 Reflections like the foregoing were forced upon my 
mind by the death of my old friend, Ralph Bigod, Esq., 
who departed this life on Wednesday evening; dying, 
as he had lived, without much trouble. He boasted 
himself a descendant from mighty ancestors of that 

20 name, who heretofore held ducal dignities in this realm. 
In his actions and sentiments he belied not the stock 
to which he pretended. Early in life he found himself 
invested with ample revenues; which, with that noble 
disinterestedness which I have noticed as inherent in 

25 men of the great race, he took almost immediate meas- 
ures entirely to dissipate and bring to nothing: for 
there is something revolting in the idea of a king hold- 
ing a private purse; and the thoughts of Bigod were 



3-4. the true Propontic which never ebbeth: the sea of Mar- 
mora, which is not subject to tides. 

9. the reversion promised. Cf. Proverbs, xix, 17; Ecclesiastes, 
xi, 1. 

10-11. Lazarus and Dives. Cf. Luke, xvi, 19-31. 

14. Strain not courtesies: do not hold back. 



THE TWO KACES OF MEN 37 

all regal. Thus furnished by the very act of disfur- 
nishment; getting rid of the cumbersome luggage of 
riches, more apt (as one sings) 

To slacken virtue, and abate her edge, 

Than prompt her to do aught may merit praise, 5 

he set forth, like some Alexander, upon his great en- 
terprise, ^^ borrowing and to ^borrow! " 

In his periegesis, or triumphant progress throughout 
this island, it has been calculated that he laid a tithe 
part of the inhabitants under contribution. I reject 10 
this estimate as greatly exaggerated: but having had 
the honor of accompanying my friend, divers times, in 
his perambulations about this vast city, I own I was 
greatly struck at first with the prodigious number of 
faces we met, who claimed a sort of respectful acquaint- 15 
ance with us. He was one day so obliging as to explain 
the phenomenon. It seems, these were his tributaries; 
feeders of his exchequer; gentlemen, his good friends (as 
he was pleased to express himself), to whom he had 
occasionally been beholden for a loan. Their multitudes 20 
did no way disconcert him. He rather took a pride in 
numbering them; and, with Comus, seemed pleased to 
be '' stocked with so fair a herd." 

With such sources, it was a wonder how he contrived 
to keep his treasury always empty. He did it by force 25 
of an aphorism, which Iw had often in his mouth, that 



1-2. furnished by the very act of disfurnishment. The king's 
revenues come from popular taxation. Bigod having got rid of 
his private fortune is now in a position to live like a king — off 
others. 

4-5. Cf. "Paradise Regained," II, 455. 

22. Comus: Milton's "Comus." Cf. 151. 

2G. aphorism: proverbial saying. 



38 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

^^ money kept longer than three days stinks." So he 
made use of it while it was fresh. A good part he 
drank away (for he was an excellent toss-pot), some he 
gave away, the rest he threw away, literally tossing 
5 and hurling it violently from him — as boys do burrs, 
or as if it had been infectious, — into ponds, or ditches, 
or deep holes, — inscrutable cavities of the earth: — or 
he would bury it (where he would never seek it again) 
by a river's side under some bank, which (he would 

10 facetiously observe) paid no interest — but out away 
from him it must go peremptorily, as Hagar's offspring 
into the wilderness, while it w^as sweet. He never missed 
it. The streams were perennial which fed his fisc. When 
new supplies became necessary, the first person that had 

15 the felicity to fall in with him, friend or stranger, was 
sure to contribute to the deficiency. For Bigod had an 
undeniable way with him. He had a cheerful, open 
exterior, a quick jovial eye, a bald forehead, just touched 
with gray {cana fides). He anticipated no excuse, and 

20 found none. And, waiving for a while my theory as 
to the great race, I would put it to the most untheorizing 
reader, who may at times have disposable coin in his 
pocket, whether it is not more repugnant to the kind- 
liness of his nature to refuse such a one as I am describ- 

25 ing, than to say no to a poor petitionary rogue (your bas- 
tard borrower), who, by his mumping visnomy, tells 
you, that he expects nothing better ; and therefore, whose 



3. toss-pot: drunkard. 

11. Hagar*s offspring: Ishmael, who was sent away into the 
desert. See Genesis, xxi, 9-21. 

13. fisc: royal treasury. 

19. cana fides: pledges of honor. 

26. mumping visnomy: countenance drawn out of shape with 
mumbling petitions for alms. 



THE TWO EACES OF MEN 39 

preconceived notions and expectations you do in reality 
so much less shock in the refusal. 

When I think of this man; his fiery glow of heart; 
his swell of feeling ; how magnificent, how ideal he was ; 
how great at the midnight hour; and when I compare 5 
with him the companions with whom I have associated 
since, I grudge the saving of a few idle ducats, and 
think that I am fallen into the society of lenders, and 
little men. 

To one like Elia, whose treasures are rather cased in 10 
leather covers than closed in iron coffers, there is a class 
of alienators more formidable than that which I have 
touched upon; I mean your borrowers of books — those 
mutilators of collections, spoilers of the symmetry of 
shelves, and creators of odd volumes. There is Com- 15 
berbatch, matchless in his depredations ! 

That foul gap in the bottom shelf facing you, like a 
great eye-tooth knocked out — (you are now with me in 
my little back study in Bloomsbury, reader!) — with the 
huge Switzer-like tomes on each side (like the Guildhall 20 
giants, in their reformed posture, guardant of nothing) 
once held the tallest of my folios. Opera Bonaventurce, 
choice and massy divinity, to w^hich its two supporters 
(school divinity also, but of a lesser calibre, — Bellar- 
mine, and Holy Thomas) showed but as dwarfs, itself 25 
an Ascapart ! — that Comberbatch abstracted upon the 
faith of a theory he holds, which is more easy, I confess, 
for me to suffer by than to refute, namely, that " the 



20. Switzer-like tomes: large volumes, like the tall members 
of the Swiss Guard in the Vatican. 

24. school divinity: nice philosophical discussions of the school- 
men, or scholastics. 

26. Ascapart: a giant thirty feet high, a character in the old 
romance, " Bevis of Hampton." 



40 SELECTED ESSAYS OF Lx\MB 

title to property in a book (my Bonaventure, for in- 
stance) is in exact ratio to the claimant's powers of 
understanding and appreciating the same/' Should 
he go on acting upon this theory, which of our shelves 
5 is safe ? 

The slight vacuum in the left-hand case — two shelves 
from the ceiling — scarcely distinguishable but by the 
quick eye of a loser — was whilom the commodious 
resting-place of Browne on Urn Burial. C. will 

10 hardly allege that he knews more about that treatise 
than I do, who introduced it to him, and was indeed 
the first (of the moderns) to discover its beauties — 
but so have I known a foolish lover to praise his mis- 
tress in the presence of a rival more qualified to carry 

15 her off than himself. — Just below, Dodsley's dramas 
want their fourth volume, where Vittoria Corombona 
is! The remainder nine are as distasteful as Priam's 
refuse sons, when the Fates horrowed Hector. Here 
stood the Anatomy of Melancholy, in sober state. — - 

20 There loitered the Complete Angler ; quiet as in life, by 
some stream side. — In yonder nook, John Buncle, a 
widower- volume, wath ^' eyes closed," mourns his rav- 
ished mate. 

One justice I must do my friend, that if he sometimes, 

25 like the sea, sweeps away a treasure, at another time, 
sea-like, he throws up as rich an equivalent to match it. 
I have a small under-coUection of this nature (my 
friend's gatherings in his various calls), picked up, he 
has forgotten at what odd places, and deposited with as 

30 little memory as mine. I take in these orphans, the 



9. C: Coleridge. 

15. Dodsley: author and publisher of the eighteenth century. 

16. Vittoria Corombona: a tragedy by Webster, reprinted by 
Dodsley. 



THE TWO EACES OF MEN 41 

twice-deserted. These proselytes of the gate are wel- 
come as the true Hebrews. There they stand in eon- 
junction; natives, and naturalized. The latter seem as 
little disposed to inquire out their true lineage as I 
am. — I charge no warehouse-room for these deodands, 5 
nor shall ever put myself to the ungentlemanly trouble 
of advertising a sale of them to pay expenses. 

To lose a volume to C. carries some sense and meaning 
in it. You are sure that he will make one hearty meal 
on your viands, if he can give no account of the platter 10 
after it. But what moved thee, wayward, spiteful K., 
to be so importunate to carry off with thee, in spite of 
tears and adjurations to thee to forbear, the Letters of 
that princely woman, the thrice noble Margaret New- 
castle ? — knowing at the time, and knowing that I knew 15 
also, thou most assuredly wouldst never turn over one 
leaf of the illustrious folio: — what but the mere spirit 
of contradiction, and childish love of getting the better 
of thy friend ? — Then, worst cut of all ! to transport it 
with thee to the Galilean land — 20 

Unworthy land to harbour such a sweetness, 
A virtue in which all ennobling thoughts dwelt, 
Pure thoughts, kind thoughts, high thoughts, her sex's 
wonder ! 

— hadst thou not thy play-books, and books of jests and 25 
fancies, about thee, to keep thee merry, even as thou 



1. proselytes of the gate: converts from among the Gentiles; 
those received from outside. Lamb welcomed these strange vol- 
umes and gave them a place in his library, not caring whence 
they came. 

n. spiteful K.: James Kenney, a dramatist. 

20. Galilean land: France, where Kenney was then living, and 
where, in 1822, Lamb visited him. 
7 



42 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

keepest all companies with thy quips and mirthful tales? 
— Child of the Green-room, it was unkindly done of thee. 
Thy wife, too, that part-French, better-part-English- 
woman! — that she could fix upon no other treatise to 
5 bear away, in kindly token of remembering us, than the 
works of Fulke Greville, Lord Brook — of which no 
Frenchman, nor woman of France, Italy, or England, 
was ever by nature constituted to comprehend a tittle ! 
Was there not Zimmermann on Solitude? 

10 Reader, if haply thou art blessed with a moderate col- 
lection, *be shy of showing it; or if thy heart overfloweth 
to lend them, lend thy books ; but let it be to such a one 
as S. T. C. — he will return them (generally anticipating 
the time appointed) with usury; enriched with annota- 

15 tions, tripling their value. I have had experience. Many 
are these precious MSS. of his — (in matter oftentimes, 
and almost in quantity not unfrequently, vying with the 
originals) — in no very clerkly hand — legible in my 
Daniel; in old Burton; in Sir Thomas Browne; and 

20 those abstruser cogitations of the Greville, now, alas ! 
wandering in Pagan lands. — I counsel thee, shut not 
thy heart, nor thy library, against S. T. C. 



2. the Green-room: the waiting room for performers behind 
the stage of a theatre. 

13. S. T. C: Coleridge again, in a new character as borrower. 

19. Daniel: Samuel Daniel (1562-1619), writer of prose and 
poetry, author of the " Delia Sonnets," etc. 



IV. NEW YEAR'S EVE 

Every man hath two birthdays : two days, at least, in 
every year, which set him upon revolving the lapse of 
time, as it affects his mortal duration. The one is that 
which in an especial manner he termeth his. In the 
gradual desuetude of old observances, this custom of 5 
solemnizing our proper birthday hath nearly passed 
away, or is left to children, who reflect nothing at all 
about the matter, nor understand anything in it beyond 
cake and orange. But the birth of a New Year is of 
an interest too wide to be pretermitted by king or cob- 10 
bier. No one ever regarded the First of January with 
indifference. It is that from which all date their time, 
and count upon what is left. It is the nativity of our 
common Adam. 

Of all sounds of all bells — (bells, the music nighest 15 
bordering upon heaven) — most solemn and touching is 
the peal which rings out the Old Year. I never hear it 
without a gathering-up of my mind to a concentration 
of all the images that have been diffused over the past 
twelvemonth; all I have done or suffered, performed or 20 
neglected — in that regretted time. I begin to know its 
worth, as when a person dies. It takes a personal colour ; 
nor was it a poetical flight in a contemporary, when he 
exclaimed 

I saw the skirts of the departing Year. 25 



5. desuetude: falling into disuse. 
25. Coleridge's *' Ode to the Departing Year." 

43 



44 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

It is no more than what in sober sadness every one 
of us seems to be conscious of, in that awful leave- 
taking. I am sure I felt it, and all felt it with me, 
last night; though some of my companions affected 
5 rather to manifest an exhilaration at the birth of 
the coming year, than any very tender regrets for the 
decease of its predecessor. But I am none of those 
who — 

Welcome the coming, speed the parting guest. 

10 I am naturally, beforehand, shy of novelties; new 
books, new faces, new years, — from some mental twist 
which makes it difficult in me to face the prospective. 
I have almost ceased to hope ; and am sanguine only in 
the prospects of other (former) years. I plunge into 

15 foregone visions and conclusions. I encounter pell-mell 
with past disappointments. I am armour-proof against 
old discouragements. I forgive, or overcome in fancy, 
old adversaries. I play over again for love, as the 
gamesters phrase it, games, for which I once paid so 

20 dear. I would scarce now have any of those untoward 
accidents and events of my life reversed. I would no 
more alter them than the incidents of some well-con- 
trived novel. Methinks, it is better that I should have 
pined away seven of my goldenest years, when I was 

25 thrall to the fair hair, and fairer eyes, of Alice W n, 

than that so passionate a love-adventure should be lost. 
It was better that our family should have missed that 
legacy, which old Dorrell cheated us of, than that I 
should have at this moment two thousand pounds in 



9. " Odyssey," XV, 84. Pope's translation. 
14-16. Observe the peculiar force of these lines. 
18. for love: for no stake, but for love of the game. 



NEW YEAE'S EVE 45 

banco, and be without the idea of that specious old 
rogue. 

In a degree beneath manhood, it is my infirmity to 
look back upon those early days. Do I advance a para- 
dox, when I say that, skipping over the intervention of 5 
forty years, a man may have leave to love himself, with- 
out the imputation of self-love? 

If I know aught of myself, no one w^hose mind is in- 
trospective — and mine is painfully so — can have a less 
respect for his present identity, than I have for the man 10 
Elia. I know^ him to be light, and vain, and humour- 
some; a notorious * * * . addicted to * * * ; averse 
from counsel, neither taking it, nor offering it ; — ^ ^ ^ 
besides; a stammering buffoon; what you will; lay it 
on, and spare not ; I subscribe to it all, and much more, 15 
than thou canst be willing to lay at his door — but for 
the child Elia — that '^ other me,'' there, in the back- 
ground — I must take leave to cherish the remembrance 
of that young master — with as little reference, I protest, 
to this stupid changeling of five-and-forty, as if it had 20 
been a child of some other house, and not of my parents. 
I can cry over its patient small-pox at five, and rougher 
medicaments. I can lay its poor fevered head upon the 
sick pillow at Christ's, and wake with it in surprise at 
the gentle posture of maternal tenderness hanging over 25 



1. in banco: in bank. (Italian.) 

11-12. humoursome: whimsical; unstable. See note on page 
245. 

12. a notorious * * *. Again Lamb's intimate conversational 
manner. Imagine the shrug of the shoulder or the gesture that 
would have supplied the omission of the word had Lamb been 
speaking. 

20. changeling. In fairy tales the infant is sometimes stolen 
from the cradle by fairies, who leave in its place a weird little 
elf or an idiot child. 



46 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

it, that unknown had watched its sleep. I know how it 
shrank from any the least colour of falsehood. — God 
help thee, Elia, how art thou changed ! Thou art sophis- 
ticated. — I know how honest, how courageous (for a 
5 weakling) it was — how religious, how imaginative, how 
hopeful ! From what have I not fallen, if the child I 
remember was indeed myself, — and not some dissembling 
guardian, presenting a false identity, to give the rule to 
my unpractised steps, and regulate the tone of my 

10 moral being ! 

That I am fond of indulging, beyond a hope of sym- 
pathy, in such retrospection, may be the symptom of 
some sickly idiosyncrasy. Or is it owing to another 
cause ; simply, that being without wife or family, I have 

15 not learned to project myself enough out of myself; 
and having no offspring of my own to dally with, I turn 
back upon memory, and adopt my own early idea, as 
my heir and favourite ? If these speculations seem fan- 
tastical to thee, reader — (a busy man, perchance), if 

20 I tread out of the way of thy sympathy, and am sin- 
gularly-conceited only, I retire, impenetrable to ridicule, 
under the phantom cloud of Elia. 

The elders, with whom I was brought up, were of a 
character not likely to let slip the sacred observance of 

25 any old institution : and the ringing out of the Old Year 
was kept by them with circumstances of peculiar cere- 
mony. — In those days the sound of those midnight 
chimes, though it seemed to raise hilarity in all around 
me, never failed to bring a train of pensive imagery into 

30 my fancy. Yet I then scarce conceived what it meant, 



13. sickly idiosyncrasy: peculiar whim betokening an un- 
healthy state of mind. 

20-21. conceited: in the Elizabethan sense, conceit means to think 
or suppose, singularly-conceited: possessed of peculiar notions. 



NEW YEAE'S EVE 47 

or thought of it as a reckoning that concerned me. Not 
childhood alone, but the young man till thirty, never 
feels practically that he is mortal. He knows it indeed, 
and, if need were, he could preach a homily on the 
fragility of life; but he brings it not home to himself, 5 
any more than in a hot June we can appropriate to our 
imagination the freezing days of December. But now, 
shall I confess a truth ? — I feel these audits but too pow- 
erfully. I begin to count the probabilities of my dura- 
tion, and to grudge at the expenditure of moments and 10 
shortest periods, like miser's farthings. In proportion 
as the years both lessen and shorten, I set more count 
upon their periods, and would fain lay my ineffectual 
finger upon the spoke of the great wheel. I am not 
content to pass away '' like a weaver's shuttle." Those 15 
metaphors solace me not, nor sweeten the unpalatable 
draught of mortality. I care not to be carried with ths 
tide, that smoothly bears human life to eternity; and 
reluct at the inevitable course of destiny. I am in love 
with this green earth; the face of town and country; 20 
the unspeakable rural solitudes, and the sweet security 
of streets. I would set up my tabernacle here. I am 
content to stand still at the age to which I am arrived ; 
I, and my friends : to be no younger, no richer, no hand- 



8. audits: reckonings; inventories. 

12. shorten: as we grow older, the years seem to go more 
rapidly. 

14. great wheel: the wheel of time. 

15. " like a weaver's shuttle." Cf. Job, vii, 6. 

16-17. the unpalatable draught of mortality: the bitter cup of 

death. 

19. reluct: show reluctance; holdback. (Obsolete.) 

22. I would set up my tabernacle here: make this earth my 

permanent abiding-place. Cf . Isaiah, xxxiii, 20 : "a tabernacle 

that shall not be taken down." 



48 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

somer. I do not want to be weaned by age; or drop, 
like mellow fruit, as they say, into the grave. — Any 
alteration, on this earth of mine, in diet or in lodging, 
puzzles and discomposes me. My household-gods plant 
5 a terrible fixed foot, and are not rooted up without 
blood. They do not willingly seek Lavinian shores. A 
new state of being staggers me. 

Sun, and sky, and breeze, and solitary walks, and sum- 
mer holidays, and the greenness of fields, and the de- 

10 licious juices of meats and fishes, and society, and the 
cheerful glass, and candle-light, and fireside conversa- 
tions, and innocent vanities, and jests, and irony itself 
— do these things go out with life? 

Can a ghost laugh, or shake his gaunt sides, when you 

15 are pleasant with him? 

And you, my midnight darlings, my Folios! must I 
part with the intense delight of having you (huge arm- 
fuls) in my embraces? Must knowledge come to me, 
if it come at all, by some awkward experiment of 

20 intuition, and no longer by this familiar process of 
reading? 

Shall I enjoy friendships there, wanting the smiling 
indications which point me to them here, — the recog- 
nizable face — the '' sweet assurance of a look " — ? 

25 In winter this intolerable disinclination to dying — to 
give it its mildest name — does more especially haunt 
and beset me. In a genial August noon, beneath a swel- 
tering sky, death is almost problematic. At those times 



1-2. drop, like mellow fruit. Cf . " Paradise Lost," XI, 535. 

9-10. the delicious juices of meats and fishes. Cf. Jeremy 
Taylor, " The Epicure's Feast " : "... and suck the delicious 
juice of fishes, the marrow of the laborious ox, and the tender 
lard of the Apulian swine . . ." 

24. From Royden's "Elegy on Sir Philip Sidney." 



NEW YEAE'S EVE 49 

do such poor snakes as myself enjoy an immortality. 
Then we expand and burgeon. Then are we as strong 
again, as valiant again, as wise again, and a great deal 
taller. The blast that nips and shrinks me, puts me in 
thoughts of death. All things allied to the insubstan- 5 
tial, wait upon that master feeling; cold, numbness, 
dreams, perplexity; moonlight itself, with its shadowy 
and spectral appearances, — that cold ghost of the sun, 
or Phoebus 's sickly sister, like that innutritions one de- 
nounced in the Canticles: — I am none of her minions — 10 
J hold with the Persian. 

Whatsoever thwarts, or puts me out of my way, 
brings death into my mind. All partial evils, like hu- 
mours, run into that capital plague-sore. — I have heard 
some profess an indifference to life. Such hail the end 15 
of their existence as a port of refuge; and speak of the 
grave as of some soft arms, in which they may slumber 
as on a pillow. Some have wooed death — but out upon 
thee, I say, thou foul, ugly phantom! I detest, abhor, 
execrate, and (with Friar John) give thee to six-score 20 
thousand devils, as in no instance to be excused or tol- 
erated, but shunned as a universal viper ; to be branded, 
proscribed, and spoken evil of! In no way can I be 
brought to digest thee, thou thin, melancholy Privation^ 
or more frightful and confounding Positive! 25 

Those antidotes, prescribed against the fear of thee, 
are altogether frigid and insulting, like thyself. For 
what satisfaction hath a man, that he shall '^ lie down 



2. burgeon: to expand; to put forth buds. 

9-10. that innutritious one denounced in the Canticles: the 
sickly sister mentioned in the Song of Solomon, viii, 8. 

24-25. Privation . . . Positive. Lamb hates death, whether re- 
garded as merely the deprivation of life, or as the positive end- 
ing of aU things; viewed as negative or positive. 



50 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

with kings and emperors in death/' who in his lifetime 
never greatly coveted the society of such bedfellows? — 
or, forsooth, that '' so shall the fairest face appear? " — 

why, to comfort me, must Alice W n be a goblin? 

5 More than all, I conceive disgust at those impertinent 
and misbecoming familiarities, inscribed upon your 
ordinary tombstones. Every dead man must take upon 
himself to be lecturing me with his odious truism, that 
^^ such as he now is, I must shortly be.'' Not so shortly, 

10 friend, perhaps as thou imaginest. In the meantime I 
am alive. I move about. I am worth twenty of thee. 
Know thy betters! Thy New Years' Days are past. I 
survive, a jolly candidate for 1821. Another cup of 
wine — and while that turn-coat bell, that just now 

15 mournfully chanted the obsequies of 1820 departed, 
with changed notes lustily rings in a successor, let us 
attune to its peal the song made on a like occasion, by 
hearty, cheerful Mr. Cotton. 

The New Year 
20 Hark! the cock crows, and yon bright star 

Tells us, the day himself s not far; 

And see where, breaking from the night, 

He gilds the western hills with light. 

With him old Janus doth appear, 
25 Peeping into the future year. 

With such a look as seems to say. 

The prospect is not good that way. 

Thus do we rise ill sights to see, 

And 'gainst ourselves to prophesy; 
30 When the prophetic fear of things 

A more tormenting mischief brings, 

1. "lie down with kings," etc. Cf. Job, iii, 13-14. Lamb doubt- 
less got the reference from his favorite " Urn Burial," chapter v. 

28-31. We suflFer more in contemplating supposed ills of the 
future than in enduring misfortunes that actually come to us. 



NEW YEAK'S EVE 51 

More full of soul-tormenting gall, 

Than direst mischiefs can befall. 

But stay! but stay! methinks my sight. 

Better inform'd by clearer light, 

Discerns sereneness in that brow, 5 

That all contracted seem'd but now. 

His reversed face may show distaste. 

And frown upon the ills are past; 

But that which this way looks is clear. 

And smiles upon the New-born Year. 10 

He looks too from a place so high, 

The Year lies open to his eye; 

And all the moments open are 

To the exact discoverer. 

Yet more and more he smiles upon 15 

The happy revolution. 

Why should we then suspect or fear 

The influences of a year, 

So smiles upon us the first morn. 

And speaks us good so soon as born? 20 

Plague on't! the last was ill enough. 

This cannot but make better proof; 

Or, at the worst, as we brush'd through 

The last, why so we may this too; 

And then the next in reason should 25 

Be superexcellently good : 

For the worst ills (we daily see) 

Have no more perpetuity. 

Than the best fortunes that do fall; 

Which also bring us wherewithal 30 

Longer their being to support. 

Than those do of the other sort : 



5. that brow: the brow of the two-faced Janus which looks 
this way into the New Year. 

25-26. Ill-luck cannot continue; if last year was unfortunate, 
and if this year turn out to be so, then the next must be a good 
year, according to every law of chance. 



52 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

And who has one good year in three. 
And yet repines at destiny. 
Appears ungrateful in the case, 
And merits not the good he has. 
6 Then let us welcome the New Guest 

With lusty brimmers of the best; 
Mirth always should Good Fortune meet. 
And render e'en Disaster sweet: 
And though the Princess turn her back, 
10 Let us but line ourselves with sack. 

We better shall by far hold out. 
Till the next Tear she face about. 

How say you, reader — do not these verses smack of 
the rough magnanimity of the old English vein? Do 

15 they not fortify like a cordial ; enlarging the heart, and 
productive of sweet blood, and generous spirits, in the 
concoction? Where be those puling fears of death, just 
now expressed or affected? — Passed like a cloud — ab- 
sorbed in the purging sunlight of clear poetry — clean 

20 washed away by a wave of genuine Helicon, your only 
Spa for these hypochondries — And now another cup of 
the generous! and a merry New Year, and many of 
them, to you all, my masters! 



6. brimmers: brimming glasses. 

9. the Princess: Good Fortune, line 7. 

10. sack: strong white wine of the South. 

2L Spa: curative water; so called from Spa, a town in Bel- 
gium, celebrated for its mineral waters. 



V. A CHAPTER ON EARS 

I HAVE no ear. — 

Mistake me not, reader, — nor imagine that I am by- 
nature destitute of those exterior twin appendages, 
hanging ornaments, and (architecturally speaking) 
handsome volutes to the human capital. Better my 5 
mother had never borne me. — I am, I think, rather 
delicately than copiously provided with those con- 
duits; and I feel no disposition to envy the mule for 
his plenty, or the mole for her exactness, in those in- 
genious labyrinthine inlets — those indispensable side- 10 
intelligencers. 

Neither have I incurred, or done anything to incur, 
with Defoe, that hideous disfigurement, which con- 
strained him to draw upon assurance — to feel '^ quite 
unabashed, '' and at ease upon that article. I was never, 15 
I thank my stars, in the pillory; nor, if I read them 
aright, is it within the compass of my destiny, that I 
ever should be. 

When therefore I say that I have no ear, you will un- 
derstand me to mean — for music. To say that this heart 20 
never melted at the concourse of sweet sounds, would be 



scroll-like ornaments characteristic of Ionic and 
Corinthian capitals. See illustration in the Standard Dictionary, 
and note the happiness of Lamb's figure in thus comparing the 
human ear. 

21. concourse of sweet sounds. Cf. "Merchant of Venice," V, 
i, 83-85. 

53 



54 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

a foul self-libeL — " Water parted from the sea '' never 
fails to move it strangely. So does " hi Infancy.^ ^ But 
they were used to be sung at her harpsichord (the old- 
fashioned instrument in vogue in those days) by a gen- 

5 tlewoman — the gentlest, sure, that ever merited the 
appellation — the sweetest — why should I hesitate to 

name Mrs. S , once the blooming Fanny Weatheral 

of the Temple — who had power to thrill the soul of Elia, 
small imp as he was, even in his long coats ; and to make 

10 him glow, tremble, and blush with a passion, that not 
faintly indicated the day-spring of that absorbing senti- 
ment, which was afterwards destined to overwhelm and 

subdue his nature quite, for Alice W n. 

I even think that sentimentally I am disposed to har- 

15 mony. But organically I am incapable of a tune. I 
have been practising '' God save the King '' all my life; 
whistling and humming of it over to myself in solitary 
corners; and am not yet arrived, they tell me, within 
many quavers of it. Yet hath the loyalty of Elia never 

20 been impeached. 

I am not without suspicion that I have an undevel- 
oped faculty of music within me. For, thrumming, in 
my wild way, on my friend A.'s piano, the other morn- 
ing, while he was engaged in an adjoining parlour, — on 

25 his return he was pleased to say, '^ he thought it could 
not he the maid! " On his first surprise at hearing the 
keys touched in somewhat an airy and masterful way, 
not dreaming of me, his suspicions had lighted on 
Jenny. But a grace, snatched from a superior refine- 



1. "Water parted from the sea": song from " Artaxerxes," 
an Italian opera adapted for the English stage. 

2. "In Infancy": another song from the same opera. 
7. Mrs. S : Mrs. Spinkes. 

23. my friend A.: William x\yrton, a musician. 



A CHAPTEE ON EARS 55 

ment, soon convinced him that some being, — technically 
perhaps deficient, but higher informed from a principle 
common to all the fine arts, — had swayed the keys to a 
mood which Jenny, with all her (less-cultivated) en- 
thusiasm, could never have elicited from them. I men- 5 
tion this as a proof of my friend's penetration, and not 
with any view of disparaging Jenny. 

Scientifically I could never be made to understand 
(yet have I taken some pains) what a note in music is; 
or how one note should differ from another. Much less 10 
in voices can I distinguish a soprano from a tenor. 
Only sometimes the thorough bass I contrive to guess 
at, from its being supereminently harsh and disagree- 
able. I tremble, however, for my misapplication of the 
simplest terms of that which I disclaim. While I profess 15 
my ignorance, I scarce know what to say I am ignorant 
of. I hate, perhaps, by misnomers. Sostenuto and 
adagio stand in the like relation of obscurity to me ; and 
Soly Fa, Mi, Be, is as conjuring as Baralipton. 

It is hard to stand alone— in an age like this, — (con- 20 
stituted to the quick and critical perception of all har- 
monious combinations, 1 verily believe, beyond all pre- 
ceding ages, since Jubal stumbled upon the gamut) — to 



12. thorough bass. Lamb means the second bass, or lowest bass 
part. Look up the word in the dictionary and note Lamb's 
error in this use of the term. He disarms criticism, however, 
in lines 14-16. 

17. misnomers: naming the thing wrongly, as in the use of the 
w^ords " thorough bass." 

17-18. Sostenuto and adagio: musical terms meaning respect- 
ively " sustained " and " slow." 

19. Sol, Fa, Mi, Re: musical names for the notes G, F, E, D. 
Baralipton: a term in Logic, of which Lamb pretends to know 
nothing. 

23. Jubal stumbled upon the gamut: Jubal discovered the musi- 
cal scale. Cf. Genesis, iv, 21. 



56 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

remain, as it were, singly iinimpressibie to the magic in- 
fluences of an art which is said to have such an especial 
stroke at soothing, elevating, and refining the passions. 
— Yet rather than break the candid current of my con- 
5 fessions, I must avow to you, that I have received a 
great deal more pain than pleasure from this so cried-up 

facultv. 

*/ 

I am constitutionally susceptible of noises. A car- 
penter's hammer, in a warm summer noon, w^ill fret me 

10 into more than midsummer madness. But those uncon- 
nected, unset sounds are nothing to the measured malice 
of music. The ear is passive to those single strokes; 
willingly enduring stripes, Avhile it hath no task to con. 
To music it cannot be passive. It will strive — mine at 

15 least will — 'spite of its inaptitude, to thrid the maze; 
like an unskilled eye painfully poring upon hiero- 
glyphics. I have sat through an Italian Opera, till, for 
sheer pain, and inexplicable anguish, I have rushed out 
into the noisiest places of the crowded streets, to solace 

20 myself with sounds, which I was not obliged to follow, 
and get rid of the distracting torment of endless, fruit- 
less, barren attention ! I take refuge in the unpretend- 
ing assemblage of honest common-life sounds; — and 
the purgatory of the Enraged Musician becomes my 

25 paradise. 

I have sat at an Oratorio (that profanation of the pur- 
poses of the cheerful playhouse) watching the faces of 



3. stroke: influence. (Obsolete.) 

10. midsummer madness. Cf. " Twelfth Night," III, iv, 61. 

15. thrid: thread. (Obsolete.) 

16-17. hieroglyphics: picture writings. 

24. Enraged Musician: the title of one of Hogarth's prints, 
depicting a musician listening to a street band. 

26. Oratorio: a semi-dramatic musical composition for voices 
and orchestra. 



A CITAPTEE OX EARS 57 

the auditory in the pit (what a contrast to Hogarth's 

Laughing Audience!) immovable, or affecting some faint 

emotion, — till (as some have said, that our occupations 

in the next world will be but a shadow of what delighted 

us in this) I have imagined myself in some cold Theatre 5 

in Hades, where some of the forms of the earthly one 

should be kept up, with none of the enjoyment; or like 

that — ^ . - 

_rarty m a parlour, 

All silent, and all damned! 10 

Above all, those insufferable concertos, and pieces of 
music, as they are called, do plague and embitter my 
apprehension. — Words are something; but to be exposed 
to an endless battery of mere sounds ; to be long a dying, 
to lie stretched upon a rack of roses ; to keep up languor 15 
by unintermitted effort; to pile honey upon sugar, and 
sugar upon honey, to an interminable tedious sweetness ; 
to fill up sound with feeling, and strain ideas to keep 
pace with it ; to gaze on empty frames, and be forced to 
make the pictures for yourself ; to read a book all stops, 20 
and be obliged to supply the verbal matter; to invent 
extempore tragedies to answer to the vague gestures of 
an inexplicable rambling mime — these are faint shadows 
of w^hat I have undergone from a series of the ablest- 
executed pieces of this empty instrumental music, 25 

I deny not, that in the opening of a concert, I have 
experienced something vastly lulling and agreeable : — 



9. Party in a parlour, etc.: lines from Wordsworth's "Peter 
Bell" as originally published; omitted from later editions. 

11. concerto: a musical composition in several movements, in 
which one instrument takes the leading part to orchestral ac- 
companiment. 

20. all stops: all punctuation marks. 

23. mime: mimic drama, or pantomime. 
8 



58 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

afterwards followeth the languor, and the oppression. 
Like that disappointing book in Patmos; or, like the 
comings on of melancholy, described by Burton, doth 
music make her first insinuating approaches: — '' Most 
5 pleasant it is to such as are melancholy given, to walk 
alone in some solitary grove, betwixt wood and w^ater, 
by some brook side, and to meditate upon some delight- 
some and pleasant subject, which shall affect him most, 
amdbilis insania, and mentis gratissimiis error. A most 

10 incomparable delight to build castles in the air, to go 
smiling to themselves, acting an infinite variety of parts, 
which they suppose, and strongly imagine, they act, or 
that they see done. — So delightsome these toys at first 
they could spend whole days and nights without sleep^ 

15 even whole years in such contemplations, and fantastical 
meditations, which are like so many dreams, and will 
hardly be drawn from them — winding and unwinding 
themselves as so many clocks, and still pleasing their 
humours, until at last the scene turns upon a sudden, 

20 and they being now habitated to such meditations and 
solitary places, can endure no company, can think of 
nothing but harsh and distasteful subjects. Fear, sor- 
row, suspicion, subriisticus pudor, discontent, cares, and 
weariness of life, Surprise them on a sudden, and they 

25 can think of nothing else : continually suspecting, no 
sooner are their eyes open, but this infernal plague of 



2. that disappointing book in Patmos. See Revelation, x, 10. 
Patmos: the island on which St. John wrote the Revelation. 

3. described by Burton. See note on page 254. 

9. amabilis insania: a pleasing madness, mentis gratissimus 
error: most delightful delusion. 

13. toys: amusements. 

16-17. will hardly be drawn from them: can with difficulty be 
turned aside from these day dreams. 

23. subrusticus pudor: rustic shyness. 



A CHAPTER ON EARS 59 

melancholy seizeth on them, and terrifies their souls, 
representing some dismal object to their minds; which 
now, by no means, no labour, no persuasions, they can 
avoid, they cannot be rid of, they cannot resist." 

Something like this ' ' scene-turning ' ' I have experi- 5 
enced at the evening parties, at the house of my good 

Catholic friend Nov ; who, by the aid of a capital 

organ, himself the most finished of players, converts his 
drawing-room into a chapel, his week days into Sundays, 
and these latter into minor heavens.^ 10 

When my friend commences upon one of those solemn 
anthems, which peradventure struck upon my heedless 
ear, rambling in the side aisles of the dim abbey, some 
five and thirty years since, waking a new sense, and put- 
ting a soul of old religion into my young apprehension 15 
— (whether it be that, in which the psalmist, weary of 
the persecutions of bad men, wisheth to himself dove's 
wings — or that other, which, with a like measure of 
sobriety and pathos, inquireth by what means the young 
man shall best cleanse his mind) — a holy calm pervad- 20 
eth me. — I am for the time 

rapt above earth. 



And possess joys not promised at my birth. 

But when this master of the spell, not content to have 
laid a soul prostrate, goes on, in his power, to inflict 25 
more bliss than lies in her capacity to receive, — im- 

1 1 have been there, and still would go ; 
'Tis like a little heaven below. — Dr. Watts. 



17-18. " for the wings of a dove! " — Psalm Iv, 6. Probably a 
reference to Mendelssohn's well-known anthem. 

19. by what means, etc.: "Wherewithal shall a young man 
cleanse his way?" — Psalm cxix, 9. 

22-23. Cf. Walton's " Complete Angler," I, iv. 



60 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

patient to overcome her '' earthly " with his '' heaven- 
ly," — still pouring in, for protracted hours, fresh 
waves and fresh from the sea of sound, or from that in- 
exhausted German ocean, above which, in triumphant 
5 progress, dolphin-seated, ride those Arions Haydn and 
Mozart^ with their attendant tritons, Bach, Beethoven, 
and a countless tribe, whom to attempt to reckon up 
would but plunge me again in the deeps, — I stagger 
under the weight of harmony, reeling to and fro at my 

10 wit's end; — clouds, as of frankincense, oppress me — 
priests, altars, censers, dazzle before me — the genius of 
his religion hath me in her toils — a shadowy triple tiara 
invests the brow of my friend, late so naked, so in- 
genuous — he is Pope, — and by him sits, like as in the 

15 anomaly of dreams, a she-Pope too, — tri-coroneted like 
himself! — I am converted, and yet a Protestant; — at 
once malleus hereiicoriim, and myself grand heresiarch: 
or three heresies centre in my person : I am Marcion, 
Ebion, and Cerinthus — Gog and Magog — what not? — 

20 till the coming in of the friendly supper-tray dissipates 
the figment, and a draught of true Lutheran beer (in 



4. German ocean: because of the great number of German 
composers. 

11-12. the genius of his religion: the spirit of Novello's religion, 
Roman Catholic, possesses Lamb as Novello weaves the spell 
by his playing upon the organ. 

12. shadowy triple tiara: the triple crown of the popes, seen 
as in a dream. 

15. the anomaly of dreams: the absurd situations that present 
themselves in dreams. she-Pope: Mrs. Novello. 

17. grand heresiarch: chief heretic. 

18-19. Marcion, Ebion, and Cerinthus: teachers and founders 
of heretical sects in the first and second centuries. See Century 
Cyclopedia. 

19. Gog and Magog. See note on page 253. 

20-21. dissipates the figment: scatters this disordered concep- 
tion of things. 



A CHAPTEE ON EARS 61 

which chiefly my friend shows himself no bigot) at once 
reconciles me to the rationalities of a purer faith ; and 
restores to me the genuine unterrifying aspects of my 
pleasant-countenanced host and hostess. 

P.S. — A writer, whose real name it seems is Boldero, 5 
but who has been entertaining the town for the last 
twelve months with some very pleasant lucubrations 
under the assumed signature of Leigh Hiint,^ in his 
*' Indicator '' of the 31st January last has thought fit 
to insinuate that I, Elia, do not Avrite the little sketches 10 
which bear my signature in this magazine, but that the 

true author of them is a Mr. L b. Observe the 

critical period at which he has chosen to impute the 
calumny, — on the very eve of the publication of our last 
number, — affording no scope for explanation for a full 15 
month ; during w^hich time I must needs lie writhing and 
tossing under the cruel imputation of nonentity. Good 
Heavens ! that a plain man must not be allowed to be 

They call this an age of personality; but surely this 
spirit of anti-personality (if I may so express it) is 20 
something worse. 

Take away my moral reputation, — I may live to dis- 
credit that calumny; injure my literary fame, — I may 
write that up again; but, when a gentleman is robbed 
of his identity, where is he? 25 

Other murderers stab but at our existence, a frail 

1 Clearly a fictitious appellation ; for, if we admit the latter of 
these names to be in a manner English, what is Leigh? Christian 
nomenclature knows no such. 



5. Boldero: Leigh Hunt's pen-name. 

7. lucubrations: meditations. 

13-14. impute the calumny: insinuate the slander. 

17. imputation of nonentity: a charge of non-existence. 



62 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

and perishing trifle at the best; but here is an assassin 
who aims at our very essence; who not only forbids ns 
to be any longer, but to have been at all. Let our an- 
cestors look to it. 
5 Is the parish register nothing? Is the house in 
Princes Street, Cavendish Square, where we saw the 
light six-and-forty years ago, nothing? Were our pro- 
genitors from stately Genoa, wiiere we flourished four 
centuries back, before the barbarous name of Boldero ^ 

10 was known to a European mouth, nothing? Was the 
goodly scion of our name, transplanted into England 
in the reign of the seventh Henry, nothing? Are the 
archives of the steelyard, in succeeding reigns (if haply 
they survive the fury of our envious enemies), showing 

15 that we flourished in prime repute, as merchants, down 
to the period of the Commonwealth, nothing? 

Why, then the world, and all that's in 't, is nothing; 
The covering sky is nothing; Bohemia nothing. 

I am ashamed that this trifling writer should have 
20 power to move me so. 

1 It is clearly of transatlantic origin. 
5 ff. All, of course, pure fiction, in Lamb's most serious vein. 



VI. A QUAKERS' MEETING 

Stiii-born Silence! thou that art 

Flood-gate of the deeper heart! 

Offspring of a heavenly kind! 

Frost o' the mouth, and thaw o' the mind! 

Secrecy's confidant, and he 5 

Who makes religion mystery! 

Admiration's speaking'st tongue! 

Leave, thy desert shades among. 

Reverend hermits' hallow'd cells, 

Where retired devotion dwells! 10 

With thy enthusiasms come. 

Seize our tongues, and strike us dumb! 

— Fleckno.* 

Reader, wouldst thou know what true peace and quiet 
mean; wouldst thou find a refuge from the noises and 15 
clamours of the multitude ; w^ouldst thou enjoy at once 
solitude and society; wouldst thou possess the depth of 
thy own spirit in stillness, without being shut out from 
the consolatory faces of thy species; wouldst thou be 
alone, and yet accompanied ; solitary, yet not desolate ; 20 

1 " Love's Dominion." 



1. Still-born: an intensive; properly, dead at birth. 

2. Flood-gate of the deeper heart: outlet for the overswelling 
emotions. 

4. Frost 0* the mouth, etc.: the mouth is sealed, but the spirit 
within is being warmed by the grateful silence. 

7. Admiration's speaking'st tongue: admiration is most elo- 
quently shown by rapt and silent attention. 

63 



64 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

singular, yet not without some to keep thee in counte- 
nance ; a unit in aggregate ; a simple in composite : — 
come with me into a Quakers' Meeting. 

Dost thou love silence as deep as that " before the 
5 winds were made ? " go not out into the w^ilderness, de- 
scend not into the profundities of the earth; shut not 
up thy casements; nor pour wax into the little cells of 
thy ears, with little-faithed self-mistrusting Ulysses. — 
Retire with me into a Quakers' Meeting. 

10 For a man to refrain even from good words, and to 
hold his peace, it is commendable; but for a multitude, 
it is great mastery. 

AVhat is the stillness of the desert, compared with this 
place? what the uncommunicating muteness of fishes? 

15 — here the goddess reigns and revels. — '^ Boreas, and 
Cesias, and Argestes loud," do not with their inter- 
confounding uproars more augment the brawl — nor the 
waves of the blown Baltic w^ith their clubbed sounds — 
than their opposite (Silence her sacred self) is multi- 

20 plied and rendered more intense by numbers, and by 
sympathy. She too hath her deeps, that call unto deeps. 
Negation itself hath a positive more and less ; and closed 
eyes would seem to obscure the great obscurity of mid- 
night. 



1-2. keep thee in countenance: give you assurance and sup- 
port. 

7. casements: the outer ear, as distinguished, perhaps, from 
the inner, into which Ulysses poured wax. Cf . '' Merchant of 
Venice," II, v, 34. 

I5-1G. " Boreas, and Cesias, and Argestes loud." Cf. " Paradise 
Lost," X, G99. These are respectively the names for the north, 
the north-east, and the north-west winds. 

18. clubbed: united. 

22. Negation itself hath a positive: qualities purely negative 
may be compared sometimes. 



A QUAKERS' MEETING 65 

There are wounds which an imperfect solitude cannot 
heal. By imperfect I mean that which a man enjoyeth 
by himself. The perfect is that which he can sometimes 
attain in crowds, but nowhere so absolutely as in a 
Quakers' Meeting. — Those first hermits did certainly 5 
understand this principle, when they retired into Egyp- 
tian solitudes, not singly, but in shoals, to enjoy one 
another's want of conversation. The Carthusian is 
bound to his brethren by this agreeing spirit of in- 
communicativeness. In secular occasions, what so pleas- 10 
ant as to be reading a book through a- long winter 
evening, with a friend sitting by — say, a wife — he, or 
she, too (if that be probable), reading another, without 
interruption, or oral communication? — can there be no 
sympathy without the gabble of words? — away with 15 
this inhuman, shy, single, shade-and-cavern-haunting 
solitariness. Give me. Master Zimmermann, a sympa- 
thetic solitude. 

To pace alone in the cloisters, or side aisles of some 
cathedral, time-stricken; 20 

Or under hanging mountains. 
Or by the fall of fountains; 

is but a vulgar luxury, compared with that which those 
enjoy, who come together for the purposes of more 
complete, abstracted solitude. This is the loneliness 25 
' ' to be felt. ' ' — The Abbey Church of Westminster hath 
nothing so solemn, so spirit-soothing, as the naked walls 
and benches of a Quakers' Meeting. Here are no tombs, 
no inscriptions, 



17. Master Zimmermann. See note on page 255. 
21-22. Cf. Pope's " Ode on St. Cecilia's Day." 
26. "to be felt." Cf. Exodus, x, 21. 



66 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 
sands, ignoble things, 



Dropt from the ruin'd sides of kings — 

but here is something, which throws Antiquity herself 
into the foreground — Silence — eldest of things — lan- 
5 guage of old Night — primitive Discourser — to which the 
insolent decays of mouldering grandeur have but ar- 
rived by a violent, and, as we may say, unnatural pro- 
gression. 

How reverend is the view of these hush'd heads, 
10 Looking tranquillity! 

Nothing - plotting, nought - caballing, unmischievous 
synod ! convocation without intrigue ! parliament w^ith- 
out debate ! what a lesson dost thou read to council, 
and to consistory! — if my pen treat of you lightly — as 

15 haply it will wander — yet my spirit hath gravely felt 
the wisdom of your custom, w^hen sitting among you 
in deepest peace, which some out-welling tears would 
rather confirm than disturb, I have reverted to the times 
of your beginnings, and the sowings of the seed by Fox 

20 and Dewesbury. — I have witnessed that, which brought 
before my eyes your heroic tranquillity, inflexible to 
the rude jests and serious violences of the insolent sol- 
diery, republican or royalist, sent to molest you — for 



1-2. From " Lines on the Tombs in Westminster Abbey," by 
Beaumont. 

6. insolent decays: insolent in pretending to be old in com- 
parison with a thing so old as silence. Note the highly forceful 
and poetical quality of such epithets as " insolent " in this line, 
" time-stricken " on page 65, line 20, and " violent " in line 7. 

11-14. Church councils, synods, and consistories are so many 
times the scenes of plotting and caballing by ambitious clerics 
who seek a higher office, that tlie peaceful serenity of a Quakers' 
Meeting is a rebuke by comparison. 



A QUAKEES' MEETING 67 

ye sate betwixt the fires of two persecutions, the out- 
cast and off-scouring of church and presbytery. — I have 
seen the reeling sea-ruffian, who had wandered into your 
receptacle, with the avowed intention of disturbing your 
quiet, from the very spirit of the place receive in a 5 
moment a new heart, and presently sit among ye as a 
lamb amidst lambs. And I remember Penn before his 
accusers, and Pox in the bail-dock, where he was lifted 
up in spirit, as he tells us, and " the Judge and the 
Jury became as dead men under his feet.'' 10 

Keader, if you are not acquainted with it, I would 
recommend to you, above all church-narratives, to read 
Sewel's History of the Quakers. It is in folio, and is 
the abstract of the journals of Fox, and the primitive 
Friends. It is far more edifying and affecting than 15 
anything you will read of Wesley and his colleagues. 
Here is nothing to stagger you, nothing to make you 
mistrust, no suspicion of alloy, no drop or dreg of the 
worldly or ambitious spirit. You w^ill here read the 
true story of that much-injured, ridiculed man (who 20 
perhaps hath been a by-word in your mouth), — James 
Naylor: what dreadful sufferings, wdth what patience, 
he endured, even to the boring through of his tongue 
with red-hot irons without a murmur; and wdtli what 
strength of mind, when the delusion he had fallen into, 25 
which they stigmatized for blasphemy, had given way 
to clearer thoughts, he could renounce his error, in a 
strain of the beautifullest humility, yet keep his first 



4. receptacle: place of meeting. 

8. bail-dock: at the Old Bailey, in London, a small room, open 
at the top, cut off from one of the corners of the court. 
13. Sewel, William (1650-1725). 

16. Wesley, John (1703-1771), the founder of Methodism. 
18. suspicion of alloy: no least trace of the worldly spirit. 



68 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

grounds, and be a Quaker still! — so different from the 
practice of your common converts from enthusiasm, 
who, when they apostatize, apostatize all, and think 
they can never get far enough from the society of their 
5 former errors, even to the renunciation of some saving 
truths, with which they had been mingled, not impli- 
cated. 

Get the Writings of John Woolman by heart; and 
love the early Quakers. 

10 How far the followers of these good men in our days 
have kept to the primitive spirit, or in what proportion 
they have substituted formality for it, the Judge of 
Spirits can alone determine. I have seen faces in their 
assemblies, upon which the dove sate visibly brooding. 

15 Others again I have watched, when my thoughts should 
have been better engaged, in which I could possibly 
detect nothing but a blank inanity. But quiet w^as in 
all, and the disposition to unanimity, and the absence 
of the fierce controversial workings. — If the spiritual 

20 pretensions of the Quakers have abated, at least they 
make few pretences. Hypocrites they certainly are not, 
in their preaching. It is seldom indeed that you shall 
see one get up amongst them to hold forth. Only now 
and then a trembling, female, generally ancient, voice 

25 is heard — you cannot guess from what part of the meet- 
ing it proceeds — with a low, buzzing, musical sound, 
laying out a few words which '' she thought might suit 
the condition of some present,'' with a quaking diffi- 
dence, which leaves no possibility of supposing that 

30 anything of female vanity was mixed up, where the 



3. apostatize: renounce. 

14. dove sate visibly brooding. Cf. Matthew, ill, 16. 
18-19. absence of fierce controversial workings. Cf. page QQ, 
lines 11-14, and footnote. 



A QUAKERS' MEETING 69 

tones were so full of tenderness, and a restraining 
modesty. — The men, from what I have observed, speak 
seldomer. 

Once only, and it was some years ago, I witnessed a 
sample of the old Foxian orgasm. It was a man of 5 
giant stature, who, as Wordsworth phrases it, might 
have danced '^ from head to foot equipt in iron mail." 
His frame was of iron too. But he was malleable. I 
saw him shake all over with the spirit — I dare not say, 
of delusion. The strivings of the outer man were un- 10 
utterable — he seemed not to speak, but to be spoken 
from. I saw the strong man bowed down, and his knees 
to fail — his joints all seemed loosening — it was a figure 
to set off against Paul Preaching — the words he uttered 
w^ere few, and sound — he was evidently resisting his 15 
\vill — keeping down his own word-wisdom with more 
mighty effort, than the world's orators strain for theirs. 
*^ He had been a Wit in his youth,'' he told us, with 
expressions of a sober remorse. And it was not till 
long after the impression had begun to wear away, that 20 
I was enabled, with something like a smile, to recall 
the striking incongruity of the confession — understand- 
ing the term in its worldly acceptation — with the frame 
and physiognomy of the person before me. His brow 
would have scared away the Levities — the Jocos Risus- 25 



5. old Foxian orgasm: the religious excitement of Fox's time. 

8. malleable: said of iron that may be shaped without break- 
ing; hence, susceptible to the force of surrounding influences. 

11-12. to be spoken from: the spirit possessing him seemed to use 
him as a mouthpiece. Cf . the picture in " The Rime of the Ancient 
Mariner," when the troop of wandering spirits possesses the bodies 
of the dead mariners, and " sweet sounds rose slowly through 
their mouths, and from their bodies passed." (Lines 352-3.) 

25. Levities: frivolous things. Jocos Risus-que: jests and 
laughter. 



70 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

que — faster than the Loves fled the face of Dis at Enna. 
— By tvit, even in his youth, I will be sworn he under- 
stood something far within the limits of an allowable 
liberty. 
5 More frequently the Meeting is broken up without a 
word having been spoken. But the mind has been fed. 
You go away with a sermon, not made with hands. 
You have been in the milder caverns of Trophonius; 
or as in some den, where that fiercest and savagest of 

10 all wild creatures, the Tongue, that unruly member, 
has strangely lain tied up and captive. You have 
bathed with stillness. — when the spirit is sore fretted, 
even tired to sickness of the j anglings, and nonsense- 
noises of the world, what a balm and a solace it is, to 

15 go and seat yourself, for a quiet half-hour, upon some 
undisputed corner of a bench, among the gentle Quakers ! * 

Their garb and stillness conjoined, present an uni- 
formity, tranquil and herd-like — as in the pasture — 
'^ forty feeding like one." 

20 The very garments of a Quaker seem incapable of 
receiving a soil; and cleanliness in them to be some- 
thing more than the absence of its contrary. Every 
Quakeress is a lily; and when they come up in bands 
to their Whitsun-conferences, whitening the easterly 

25 streets of the metropolis, from all parts of the United 
Kingdom, they show like troops of the Shining Ones. 



10. that unruly member. Cf. James, iii, 5-8. 
19. "forty feeding like one": Wordsworth's poem beginning, 
The oock is crowing." 
26. Shining Ones: angels. Cf. "Pilgrim's Progress," I. 



VII. MY RELATIONS 

I AM arrived at that point of life, at which a man 
may account it a blessing, as it is a singularity, if he 
have either of his parents surviving. I have not that 
felicity — and sometimes think feelingly of a passage in 
'' Browne's Christian Morals,'' where he speaks of a 5 
man that hath lived sixty or seventy years in the world. 
'^ In such a compass of time," he says, ^' a man may 
have a close apprehension what it is to be forgotten, 
when he hath lived to find none who could remember 
his father, or scarcely the friends of his youth, and may 10 
sensibly see with what a face in no long time Oblivion 
will look upon himself." 

I had an aunt, a dear and good one. She was one 
whom single blessedness had soured to the world. She 
often used to say, that I was the only thing in it which 15 
she loved; and, when she thought I was quitting it, she 
grieved over me with mother's tears. A partiality quite 
so exclusive my reason cannot altogether approve. She 
was from morning till night poring over good books, 
and devotional exercises. Her favourite volumes were 20 
Thomas a Kempis, in Stanhope's Translation; and a 
Roman Catholic Prayer-Book, with the matins and com- 
plines regularly set down, — terms which I was at that 



14. single blessedness: the happy condition of spinsterhood. 
22. matins: the early morning service of the Roman Catholic 
church. 

22-23. complines: the last service of the day, held after vespers. 

71 



72 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

time too young to understand. She persisted in read- 
ing them, although admonished daily concerning their 
Papistical tendency ; and went to church every Sabbath, 
as a good Protestant should do. These were the only 
5 books she studied; though, I think, at one period of her 
life, she told me she had read with great satisfaction 
the ^^ Adventures of an Unfortunate Young Nobleman.'' 
Finding the door of the chapel in Essex Street open 
one day — it was in the infancy of that heresy — she 

10 went in, liked the sermon, and the manner of worship, 
and frequented it at intervals for some time after. She 
came not for doctrinal points, and never missed them. 
With some little asperities in her constitution, which I 
have above hinted at, she was a steadfast, friendly being, 

15 and a fine old Christian. She was a woman of strong 
sense, and a shrewd mind — extraordinary at a repartee; 
one of the few occasions of her breaking silence — else 
she did not much value wit. The only secular employ- 
ment I remember to have seen her engaged in, was, the 

20 splitting of French beans, and dropping them into a 
China basin of fair water. The odour of those tender 
vegetables to this day comes back upon my sense, redo- 
lent of soothing recollections. Certainly it is the most 
delicate of culinary operations. 

25 Male aunts, as somebody calls them, I had none — to 
remember. By the uncle's side I may be said to have 
been born an orphan. Brother, or sister, I never had 
any — to know them. A sister, I think, that should have 
been Elizabeth, died in both our infancies. What a com- 

30 fort, or what a care, may I not have missed in her ! — But 
I have cousins, sprinkled about in Hertfordshire — besides 



3. Papistical tendency: tendency toward the practices of the 
Roman church. 



MY EELATIONS 73 

hvo, with whom I have been all my life in habits of the 
closest intimacy, and whom I may term cousins par ex- 
cellence. These are James and Bridget Elia. They are 
older than myself by twelve, and ten, years ; and neither 
of them seems disposed, in matters of advice and guid- 5 
ance, to waive any of the prerogatives which primogeni- 
ture confers. May they continue still in the same mind ; 
and when they shall be seventy-five, and seventy-three, 
years old (I cannot spare them sooner), persist in treat- 
ing me in my grand climacteric precisely as a stripling, 10 
or younger brother ! 

James is an inexplicable cousin. Nature hath her 
unities, which not every critic can penetrate; or, if we 
feel, we cannot explain them. The pen of Yorick, and of 
none since his, could have drawn J. E. entire — those fine 15 
Shandean lights and shades, which make up his story. 
I must limp after in my poor antithetical manner, as 
the fates have given me grace and talent. J. E. then — 
to the eye of a common observer at least — seemeth made 
up of contradictory principles. — The genuine child 20 
of impulse, the frigid philosopher of prudence — the 
phlegm of my cousin's doctrine is invariably at war 
with his temperament, which is high sanguine. With 
always some fire-new project in his brain, J. E. is the 
systematic opponent of innovation, and crier-down of 25 



2-3. par excellence: beyond all others. 

6-7. waive any of the prerogatives which primogeniture confers: 
do away with any of the privileges which belong to the first born. 

10. grand climacteric: at the age of sixty-three. Climacteric 
periods in human life — periods of critical change in the body — 
were formerly supposed to come with the years that were multi- 
ples of seven or nine. 

17. my poor antithetical manner: my weak characterizations as 
compared with the strong ones Sterne might have drawn. 

22. phlegm of my cousin's doctrine, etc. See note on page 245. 
9 



74 ' SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

everything that has not stood the test of age and ex- 
periment. With a hundred fine notions chasing one 
another hourly in his fancy, he is startled at the least 
approach to the romantic in others; and, determined by 
5 his own sense in everything, commends you to the guid- 
ance of common sense on all occasions. — With a touch 
of the eccentric in all which he does, or says, he is only 
anxious that yon should not commit yourself by doing 
anything absurd or singular. On my once letting slip 

10 at table, that I was not fond of a certain popular dish, 
he begged me at any rate not to say so — for the world 
would think me mad. He disguises a passionate fond- 
ness for works of high art (whereof he hath amassed a 
choice collection), under the pretext of buying only to 

15 sell again — that his enthusiasm may give no encourage- 
ment to yours. Yet, if it were so, why does that piece 
of tender, pastoral Domenichino hang still by his wall? 
— is the ball of his sight much more dear to him? — or 
what picture-dealer can talk like him? 

20 Whereas mankind in general are observed to warp 
their speculative conclusions to the bent of their indi- 
vidual humours, Ms theories are sure to be in diametri- 
cal opposition to his constitution. He is courageous as 
Charles of Sweden, upon instinct; chary of his person, 

25 upon principle, as a travelling Quaker. — He has been 
preaching up to me, all my life, the doctrine of bowing 
to the great — the necessity of forms, and manner, to a 
man's getting on in the world. He himself never aims 
at either, that I can discover, — and has a spirit, that 

30 would stand upright in the presence of the Cham of 
Tartary. It is pleasant to hear him discourse of pa- 



17. Domenichino: a painting by Domenico Zampieri (1581- 
1641), an Italian artist. 



MY RELATIONS 75 

tience — extolling it as the truest wisdom — and to see 
him during the last seven minutes that his dinner is get- 
ting ready. Nature never ran up in her haste a more 
restless piece of workmanship than when she moulded 
this impetuous cousin — and Art never turned out a more 5 
elaborate orator than he can display himself to be, upon 
his favourite topic of the advantage of quiet, and 
contentedness in the state, whatever it be, that we are 
placed in. He is triumphant on this theme, when he 
has you safe in one of those short stages that ply for 10 
the western road, in a very obstructing manner, at the 
foot of John Murray's street — where you get in when 
it is empty, and are expected to wait till the vehicle hath 
completed her just freight — a trying three quarters of 
an hour to some people. He wonders at your fidgetiness 15 
— '^ where could we be better than we are, thus sitting, 
thus consulting ? " — '' prefers, for his part, a state of 
rest to locomotion," — with an eye all the while upon the 
coachman — till at length, waxing out of all patience, at 
your want of it, he breaks out into a pathetic remon- 20 
strance at the fellow for detaining us so long over the 
time which he had professed, and declares peremptorily, 
that '' the gentleman in the coach is determined to get 
out, if he does not drive on that instant." 

Very quick at inventing an argument, or detecting a 25 
sophistry, he is incapable of attending yoit in any chain 
of arguing. Indeed he makes wild work with logic ; and 
seems to jump at most admirable conclusions by some 
process, no^ at all akin to it. Consonantly enough to 
this, he hath been heard to deny, upon certain occasions, 30 
that there exists such a faculty at all in man as reason; 

16-17. thus sitting, thus consulting. Cf. " Paradise Lost/' II, 
164. 
29-30. Consonantly enough to this: in the same vein with this. 



76 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

and wondereth how man came first to have a conceit of 
it — enforcing his negation with all the might of reason- 
ing he is master of. He has some speculative notions 
against laughter, and will maintain that laughing is not 
5 natural to him — when peradventure the next moment 
his lungs shall crow like Chanticleer. He says some of 
the best things in the world — and declareth that wit is 
his aversion. It was he who said, upon seeing the Eton 
boys at play in their grounds — What a pity to think, 

10 that these fine ingemioiis lads in a few years will all be 
changed into frivolous Members of Parliament! 

His youth was fiery, glowing, tempestuous — and in 
age he discovereth no symptom of cooling. This is that 
which I admire in him. I hate people who meet Time 

15 half-way. I am for no compromise with that inevitable 
spoiler. While he lives, J. E. will take his swing. — It 
does me good, as I walk towards the street of my daily 
avocation, on some fine May morning, to meet him 
marching in a quite opposite direction, with a jolly 

20 handsome presence, and shining sanguine face, that in- 
dicates some purchase in his eye — a Claude — or a Hoh- 
bima — for much of his enviable leisure is consumed at 
Christie's, and Phillips's — or where not, to pick up pic- 
tures, and such gauds. On these occasions he mostly 

25 stoppeth me, to read a short lecture on the advantage a 
person like me possesses above himself, in having his 



1-2. to have a conceit of it: to have an idea of it. 

6. his lungs shall crow like Chanticleer. Cf. " As You Like It," 
II, vii, 30. 

21. Claude: French landscape painter of the seventeenth cen- 
tury. 

21-22. Hobbima: Dutch artist of the seventeenth century. 

23. Christie's, and Phillips's: English artists who had studios 
and salesrooms in London. 



MY RELATIONS 77 

time occupied with business which he must do — assureth 
me that he often feels it hang heavy on his hands — 
wishes he had fewer holidays — and goes off — AVestward 
Ho ! — chanting a tune to Pall Mall — perfectly convinced 
that he has convinced me — while I proceed in my oppo- 5 
site direction tuneless. 

It is pleasant again to see this Professor of Indiffer- 
ence doing the honours of his new purchase, when he 
has fairly housed it. You must view it in every light, 
till he has found the best — placing it at this distance, 10 
and at that, but always suiting the focus of your sight 
to his own. You must spy at it through your fingers, to 
catch the aerial perspective — though you assure him 
that to you the landscape shows much more agreeable 
without that artifice. Woe be to the luckless weight, who 15 
does not only not respond to his rapture, but who should 
drop an unseasonable intimation of preferring one of 
his anterior bargains to the present ! — The last is always 
his best hit — his " Cynthia of the minute.^' — Alas! how 
many a mild Madonna have I known to come in — a 20 
Raphael ! — keep its ascendancy for a few brief moons — 
then, after certain intermedial degradations, from the 
front drawing-room to the back gallery, thence to the 



3-4. Westward Ho!: the old cry of the Thames boatmen, indi- 
cating the direction of their boats in their call for passengers. 
The West End of London is the fashionable quarter, and Pall Mall 
(pronounced Pell Mell) is the fashionable street. 

13. aerial perspective: indication of relative distances of objects 
by gradation of color. 

19. "Cynthia of the minute." Cf. Pope's "Epistles," II, 19. 
Pope is referring to the appearance of the moon (Cynthia) 
through the clouds at a given moment of time. 

22. intermedial degradations: slight falls in his estimation that 
intervened between his first glory in the picture as a probable 
Raphael, and its final consignment to the lumber-room as merely 



78 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

dark parlour, — adopted in turn by each of the Carracci, 
under successive lowering ascriptions of filiation, mildly 
breaking its fall — consigned to the oblivious lumber- 
room, go out at last a Lucca Giordano, or plain Carlo 
5 Maratti! — whicli things when I beheld — musing upon 
the chances and mutabilities of fate below — hath made 
me to reflect upon the altered condition of great person- 
ages, or that w^oful queen of Richard the Second — 

set forth in pomp, 

10 She came adorned hither like sweet May. 

Sent back like Llallowmas or shortest day. 

With great love for you, J. E. hath but a limited sym- 
pathy with what you feel or do. He lives in a world of 
his own, and makes slender guesses at what passes in 

15 your mind. He never pierces the marrow of your habits. 
He will tell an old-established play-goer, that Mr. Such- 
a-one, of So-and-so (naming one of the theatres), is a 
very lively comedian — as a piece of news! He adver- 
tised me but the other day of some pleasant green lanes 

20 which he had found out for me, knoiving me to be a 
great walker, in my own immediate vicinity — who have 
haunted the identical spot any time these twenty years ! 
— He has not much respect for that class of feelings 
which goes by the name of sentimental. He applies the 

25 definition of real evil to bodily sufferings exclusively — 
and rejecteth all others as imaginary. He is affected by 
the sight, or the bare supposition, of a creature in pain, 
to a degree which I have never witnessed out of woman- 



the work of less renowned artists, 1 ff., the Carracci, Giordano, or 
Maratti, Italian painters of the sixteenth and seventeenth cen- 
turies. 

9-11. Cf. "Richard 11," V, i, 78-80, Hallowmas: All Saints' 
Day, November 1. shortest day: December 22. 



MY EELATIONS 79 

kind. A constitutional acuteness to this class of suffer- 
ings may in part account for this. The animal tribe in 
particular he taketh under his especial protection. A 
broken-winded or spur-galled horse is sure to find an 
advocate in him. An over-loaded ass is his client for 5 
ever. He is the apostle to the brute kind — the never- 
failing friend of those who have none to care for them. 
The contemplation of a lobster boiled, or eels skinned 
alive, will wring him so, that " all for pity he could 
die.'' It will take the savour from his palate, and the 10 
rest from his pillow, for days and nights. With the in- 
tense feeling of Thomas Clarkson, he wanted only the 
steadiness of pursuit, and unity of purpose, of that 
" true yoke-fellow with Time,'' to have effected as much 
for the Anirnal, as he hath done for the Negro Creation, 15 
But my uncontrollable cousin is but imperfectly formed 
for purposes which demand co-operation. He cannot 
wait. His amelioration-plans must be ripened in a day. 
For this reason he has cut but an equivocal figure in 
benevolent societies, and combinations for the allevia- 20 
tion of human sufferings. His zeal constantly makes 
him to outrun, and put out, his coadjutors. He thinks 
of relieving, — while they think of debating. He was 
black-balled out of a society for the Relief of * ^ * 
# # # # # # ^ because the fervour of his humanity 25 



9-10. " all for pity he could die." Spenser's " Faerie Queene," I, 
iii, 1. 

12. Thomas Clarkson (1760-1846): famous abolitionist. 

14. "true yoke-fellow with Time": from Wordsworth's sonnet 
on Clarkson. 

18. His amelioration-plans, etc.: his plans for bettering condi- 
tions must be put into instant effect. 

19. cut but an equivocal figure: showed himself in questionable 
light. 



80 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

toiled beyond the formal apprehension, and creeping 
processes, of his associates. I shall always consider this 
distinction as a patent of nobility in the Elia family ! 
Do I mention these seeming inconsistencies to smile 
5 at, or upbraid, my unique cousin? Marry, heaven, and 
all good manners, and the understanding that should be 
between kinsfolk, forbid! — With all the strangeness of 
this strangest of the Elias — I would not have him in one 
jot or tittle other than he is; neither would I barter or 

10 exchange my wild kinsman for the most exact, regular, 
and every-way consistent kinsman breathing. 

In my next, reader, I may perhaps give you some ac- 
count of my cousin Bridget — if you are not already sur- 
feited with cousins — and take you by the hand, if you 

15 are willing to go with us, on an excursion which we 
made a summer or two since, in search of more cousins — 

Through the green plains of pleasant Hertfordshire. 



8-9. one jot or tittle: in no smallest detail. Cf. Matthew, v, 18, 
17. Quoted from an early sonnet of Lamb's. 



VIII. MACKERY END, IN HERTFORDSHIRE 

Bridget Elia has been my housekeeper for many a 
long year. I have obligations to Bridget, extending be- 
yond the period of memory. "We house together, old 
bachelor and maid, in a sort of double singleness; with 
such tolerable comfort, upon the whole, that I, for one, 5 
find myself in no sort of disposition to go out upon the 
mountains, with the rash king's offspring, to bewail my 
celibacy. We agree pretty well in our tastes and habits 
— yet so, as '' with a difference." AVe are generally in 
harmony, with occasional bickerings — as it should be 10 
among near relations. Our sympathies are rather un- 
derstood, than expressed; and once, upon my dissem- 
bling a tone in my voice more kind than ordinary, my 
cousin burst into tears, and complained that I was al- 
tered. We are both great readers in different directions. 15 
While I am hanging over (for the thousandth time) 
some passage in old Burton, or one of his strange con- 
temporaries, she is abstracted in some modern tale, or 
adventure, whereof our common reading-table is daily 
fed with assiduously fresh supplies. Narrative teases 20 



7-8. with the rash king's offspring, to bewail my celibacy. For 
the account of Jephthah's daughter see Judges, xi, 30-40. Cf. also 
Tennesson's " Dream of Fair Women." 

9. difference : heraldic blazons used to distinguish persons hav- 
ing the same coat of arms. 

9-15. One of the best illustrations of the peculiar bent of 
Lamb's humor — a combination of the quaint with the unexpected. 

81 



82 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

me. I have little concern in the progress of events. She 
must have a story, — well, ill, or indifferently told — so 
there be life stirring in it, and plenty of good or evil 
accidents. The fluctuations of fortune in fiction — and 
5 almost in real life — have ceased to interest, or operate 
but dully upon me. Out-of-the-way humours and opin- 
ions — heads with some diverting twist in them — the 
oddities of authorship please me most. My cousin has 
a native disrelish of anything that sounds odd or 

10 bizarre. Nothing goes down with her that is quaint, 
irregular, or out of the road of common sympathy. She 
^^ holds Nature more clever. ^^ I can pardon her blind- 
ness to the beautiful obliquities of the Religio Medici ; 
but she must apologize to me for certain disrespectful 

15 insinuations, which she has been pleased to throw out 
latterly, touching the intellectuals of a dear favourite 
of mine, of the last century but one — the thrice noble, 
chaste, and virtuous, — but again somewhat fantastical, 
and original-brained, generous Margaret Newcastle. 

20 It has been the lot of my cousin, oftener perhaps than 
I could have wished, to have had for her associates and 
mine, free-thinkers — leaders, and disciples, of novel 
philosophies and systems ; but she neither wrangles with, 
nor accepts, their opinions. That which was good and 

25 venerable to her, when she was a child, retains its au- 
thority over her mind still. She never juggles or plays 
tricks with her understanding. 

We are both of us inclined to be a little too positive ; 
and I have observed the result of our disputes to be al- 



7. diverting twist: pleasing oddity in their way of looking at 
things. 

10. bizarre: grotesque; odd. 

13. Religio Medici. See note on page 253. 

19. Margaret Newcastle. See note on page 254. 



MACKERY END, IN HERTFORDSHIRE 83 

most uniformly this — that in matters of fact, dates, and 
circumstances, it turns out, that I was in the right, and 
my cousin in the wrong. But where we have differed 
upon moral points; upon something proper to be done, . 
or let alone; whatever heat of opposition, or steadiness 5 
of conviction, I set out with, I am sure always in the 
long run, to be brought over to her way of thinking. 

I must touch upon the foibles of my kinswoman with 
a gentle hand, for Bridget does not like to be told of her 
faults. She hath an awkward trick (to say no worse 10 
of it) of reading in company: at which times she will 
answer yes or 7io to a question, without fully under- 
standing its purport — which is provoking, and deroga- 
tory in the highest degree to the dignity of the putter 
of the said question. Her presence of mind is equal to 15 
the most pressing trials of life, but will sometimes de- 
sert her upon trifling occasions. When the purpose 
requires it, and is a thing of moment, she can speak to 
it greatly ; but in matters which are not stuff of the con- 
science, she hath been known sometimes to let slip a 20 
word less seasonably. 

Her education in youth was not much attended to; 
and she happily missed all that train of female garni- 
ture, which passeth by the name of accomplishments. 
She was tumbled early, by accident or design, into a 25 
spacious closet of good old English reading, without 
much selection or prohibition, and browsed at will upon 
that fair and wholesome pasturage. Had I twenty girls, 
they should be brought up exactly in this fashion. I 
know not whether their chance in wedlock might not be 30 



19. greatly: in a large way; comprehensively. 
23-24. garniture. Lamb means music, painting, etc. 
26. spacious closet of good old English reading: the library 
of Samuel Salt. See note on page 267. 



84 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

diminished by it ; but I can answer for it, that it makes 
(if the worst come to the worst) most incomparable 
old maids. 
% In a season of distress, she is the truest comforter; 
5 but in the teasing accidents, and minor perplexities, 
which do not call out the will to meet them, she some- 
times maketh matters worse by an excess of participa- 
tion. If she does not always divide your trouble, upon 
the pleasanter occasions of life she is sure always to 

10 treble your satisfaction. She is excellent to be at play 
with, or upon a visit ; but best, when she goes a journey 
with you. 

We made an excursion together a few summers since, 
into Hertfordshire, to beat up the quarters of some of 

15 our less-known relations in that fine corn country. 

The oldest thing I remember is Mackery End; or 
Mackarel End, as it is spelt, perhaps more properly, in 
some old maps of Hertfordshire ; a farm-house, — de- 
lightfully situated within a gentle walk from Wheat- 

20 hampstead. I can just remember having been there, on 
a visit to a great-aunt, when I was a child, under the care 
of Bridget; who, as I have said, is older than myself 
by some ten years. I wish that I could throw into a 
heap the remainder of our joint existences, that we 

25 might share them in equal division. But that is impos- 
sible. The house was at that time in the occupation of 
a substantial yeoman, who had married my grand- 
mother's sister. His name was Gladman. My grand- 
mother was a Bruton, married to a Field. The Gladmans 

30 and the Brutons are still flourishing in that part of the 
country, but the Fields are almost extinct. More than 
forty years had elapsed since the visit I speak of; and, 



14. beat up the quarters: make a sudden attack upon the house. 



MACKERY END, IN HERTFORDSHIRE 85 

for the greater portion of that period, we had lost sight 
of the other two branches also. Who or what sort of 
persons inherited Mackery End — kindred or strange 
folk — we were afraid almost to conjecture, but deter- 
mined some day to explore. 5 

By somewhat a circuitous route, taking the noble park 
at Luton in our way from Saint Alban's, we arrived at 
the spot of our anxious curiosity about noon. The sight 
of the old farm-house, though every trace of it was ef- 
faced from my recollection, affected me with a pleasure 10 
which I had not experienced for many a year. For 
though I had forgotten it, we had never forgotten being 
there together, and we had been talking about Mackery 
End all our lives, till memory on my part became 
mocked with a phantom of itself, and I thought I knew 15 
the aspect of a place, which, when present, how unlike 
it was to that^ which I had conjured up so many times 
instead of it! 

Still the air breathed balmily about it ; the season was 
in the ' ' heart of June, ' ' and I could say with the poet, 20 

But thou, that didst appear so fair 

To fond imagination. 
Dost rival in the light of day 

Her delicate creation ! ^ 

Bridget's was more a waking bliss than mine, for she 25 
easily remembered her old acquaintance again — some al- 
tered features, of course, a little grudged at. At first, 
indeed, she was ready to disbelieve for joy; but the 

1 Wordsworth. 



14-15. till memory . . . became mocked with a phantom of 
itself: the memory had been so long with him that it had be- 
come hazy; but he still took it for reality. 

21-24. "Yarrow Revisited." 



86 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

scene soon reconfirmed itself in her affections — and she 
traversed every outpost of the old mansion, to the wood- 
house, the orchard, the place where the pigeon-house 
had stood (house and birds were alike flown) — with a 
5 breathless impatience of recognition, which was more 
pardonable perhaps than decorous at the age of fifty- 
odd. But Bridget in some things is behind her years. 

The only thing left was to get into the house — and 
that was a difficulty which to me singly would have been 

10 insurmountable ; for I am terribly shy in making myself 
known to strangers and out-of-date kinsfolk. Love, 
stronger than scruple, winged my cousin in without me ; 
but she soon returned with a creature that might have 
sat to a sculptor for the image of Welcome. It was the 

15 youngest of the Gladmans; who, by marriage with a 
Bruton, had become mistress of the old mansion. A 
comely brood are the Brutons. Six of them, females, 
were noted as the handsomest young w^omen in the 
county. But this adopted Bruton, in my mind, was bet- 

20 ter than they all — more comely. She was born too late 
to have remembered me. She just recollected in early 
life to have had her cousin Bridget once pointed out to 
her, climbing a stile. But the name of kindred, and 
of cousinship, was enough. Those slender ties, that 

25 prove slight as gossamer in the rending atmosphere of a 
metropolis, bind faster, as we found it, in hearty, 
homely, loving Hertfordshire. In five minutes we were 
as thoroughly acquainted as if we had been born and 
bred up together; were familiar, even to the calling 

30 each other by our Christian names. So Christians 
should call one another. To have seen Bridget, and her 



25-26. rending atmosphere of a metropolis: the separating 
social relations of a city. 



MACKERY END, IN HERTFORDSHIRE 87 

— it was like the meeting of the two scriptural cousins! 
There was a grace and dignity, an amplitude of form 
and stature, answering to her mind in this farmer's 
wife, which would have shined in a palace — or so we 
thought it. We were made welcome by husband and 5 
wife equally — we, and our friend that was with us. — I 
had almost forgotten him — but B. F. will not so soon, 
forget that meeting, if peradventure he shall read this 
on the far-distant shores where the Kangaroo haunts. 
The fatted calf was made ready, or rather was already 10 
so, as if in anticipation of our coming; and, after an 
appropriate glass of native wine, never let me forget 
with what honest pride this hospitable cousin made us 
proceed to AVheathampstead, to introduce us (as some 
new-found rarity) to her mother and sister Gladmans, 15 
who did indeed know something more of us, at a time 
when she almost knew nothing. — With what correspond 
ing kindness we were received by them also — how Brid 
get's memory, exalted by the occasion, warmed into a 
thousand half-obliterated recollections of things and 20 
persons, to my utter astonishment, and her own — and 
to the astoundment of B. F. who sat by, almost the only 
thing that was not a cousin there, — old effaced images 
of more than half-forgotten names and circumstances 
still crowding back upon her, as words written in lemon 25 
come out upon exposure to a friendly warmth, — when I 



1. two scriptural cousins: Mary, the mother of Christ, and 
Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist. Cf. Luke, i, 39-56. 

7. B. F.: Barron Field. See essay on "Distant Correspondents,'- 
and note to same. 

9. where the Kangaroo haunts: Australia. Field lived at Sid 
ney, N. S. W. 

10. fatted calf: a feast. Cf. Luke, xv. 

25. words written in lemon: an invisible ink that becomes legi- 
ble when exposed to heat. 



88 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

forget all this, then may my country cousins forget me ; 
and Bridget no more remember, that in the days of 
weakling infancy I was her tender charge — as I have 
been her care in foolish manhood since — in those pretty 
pastoral walks, long ago, about Mackery End, in Hert- 
fordshire. 



IX. IMPERFECT SYMPATHIES 

I am of a constitution so general, that it consorts and sympa- 
thizeth with all things; I have no antipathy, or rather idiosyn- 
crasy, in anything. Those national repugnances do not touch me, 
nor do I behold with prejudice the French, Italian, Spaniard, or 
Dutch. — Religio Medici, 5 

That the author of the Religio Medici, mounted upon 
the airy stilts of abstraction, conversant about notional 
and conjectural essences; in whose categories of Being 
the possible took the upper hand of the actual; should 
have overlooked the impertinent individualities of such 10 
poor concretions as mankind, is not much to be admired. 
It is rather to be wondered at, that in the genus of ani- 
mals he should have condescended to distinguish that 
species at all. For myself — earth-bound and fettered 
to the scene of my activities, — 15 

Standing on earth, not rapt above the sky, 

I confess that I do feel the differences of mankind, na- 
tional or individual, to an unhealthy excess. I can look 
with no indifferent eye upon things or persons. What- 



6-11. Freely paraphrased, this sentence would read: That Sir 
Thomas Browne, dwelling in the realms of philosophy, thinking 
about ideal and uncertain states of existence; in whose classifica- 
tions of Life the thing that might he seemed more important than 
the thing that was; that he should have overlooked the unim- 
portant differences in the individualities of mere man, is not 
much to be wondered at. Admired is here used in its original / / 
sense. Cf. the Latin.) n/7>- 

16. Slightly misquoted from "Paradise Lost," VII, 23. 
10 89 



r 



90 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

ever is, is to me a matter of taste or distaste; or when 
once it becomes indifferent, it begins to be disrelishing. I 
am, in plainer words, a bundle of prejudices — made up of 
likings and dislikings — the veriest thrall to sympathies, 
5 apathies, antipathies. In a certain sense, I hope it may 
be said of me that I am a lover of my species. I can feel 
for all indifferently, but I cannot feel towards all equally. 
The more purely-English word that expresses sympathy 
will better explain my meaning. I can be a friend to a 
10 worthy man, who upon another account cannot be my 
mate or fellow. I cannot like all people alike.^ 

1 1 would be understood as confining myself to the subject of 
imperfect sympathies. To nations or classes of men there can be 
no direct antipathy. There may be individuals born and con- 
15 stellated so opposite to another individual nature, that the same 
sphere cannot hold them. I have met with my moral antipodes, 
and can believe the story of two persons meeting (who never saw 
one another before in their lives) and instantly fighting. 

We by proof find there should be 

20 'Twixt man and man such an antipathy, 

That though he can show no just reason why 
For any former wrong or injury, 
Can neither find a blemish in his fame, 
Nor aught in face or feature justly blame, 
25 Can challenge or accuse him of no evil. 

Yet notwithstanding hates him as a devil. 

The lines are from old Heywood's " Hierarchic of Angels," and he 
subjoins a curious story in confirmation, of a Spaniard who at- 
tempted to assassinate a King Ferdinand of Spain, and being put 
30 to the rack could give no other reason for the deed but an invet- 
erate antipathy which he had taken to the first sight of the King. 

The cause to which that act compelled him 

Was, he ne'er loved him since he first beheld him. 



4. the veriest thrall, etc.: Lamb is an abject slave to his 
sympathies, his feelings of indifference, and his active dislikes. 

14-15. constellated: fated by the stars. 

16. antipodes: opposite. 

27. old Heywood: Thomas Heywood, English dramatist of the 
seventeenth century. 



IMPERFECT SYMPATHIES 91 

I have been trying all my life to like Scotchmen, and 
am obliged to desist from the experiment in despair. 
They cannot like me — and in truth, I never knew one of 

that nation who attempted to do it. There is something a 

more plain and ingenuous in their mode of proceeding. 5 3 
We know one another at first sight. There is an order 
of imperfect intellects (under which mine must be con- 
tent to rank) which in its constitution is essentially anti- 
Caledonian. The owners of the sort of faculties I allude 
to, have minds rather suggestive than comprehensive. 10 
They have no pretences to much clearness or precision 
in their ideas, or in their manner of expressing them. 
Their intellectual w^ardrobe (to confess fairly) has few 
whole pieces in it. They are content with fragments 
and scattered pieces of Truth. She presents no full 15 
front to them — a feature or side-face at the most. Hints 
and glimpses, germs and crude essays at a system, is 
the utmost they pretend to. They beat up a little game 
peradventure — and leave it to knottier heads, more 
robust constitutions, to run it down. The light that 20 
lights them is not steady and polar, but mutable and 
shifting: waxing, and again waning. Their conversa- 
tion is accordingly. They will throw out a random word 
in or out of season, and be content to let it pass for 
what it is worth. They cannot speak always as if they 25 
were upon their oath — but must be understood, speak- 

8-9. anti-Caledonian: Caledonia, the old Roman name for Scot- 
land; therefore, opposed to the Scots. 

II ff. Lamb here pretends to give a faithful picture of his 
own mind. Is he truthful in the revelation? 

17. essays: attempts. 

18. beat up a little game. Cf. a similar phrase on page 84, 
line 14. The former is a military, this a sporting phrase, the 
meaning here being to rouse up the game for a shot. 

21. polar: that is, like the unchanging light of the North Star, 



92 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

ing or writing, with some abatement. They seldom wait 
to mature a proposition, but e'en bring it to market in 
the green ear. They delight to impart their defective 

^ discoveries, as they arise, without waiting for their full 

5 development. They are no systematizers, and would but 
err more by attempting it. Their minds, as I said be- 
fore, are suggestive merely. The brain of a true Cale- 
donian (if I am not mistaken) is constituted upon quite 
a different plan. His Minerva is born in panoply. You 

10 are never admitted to see his ideas in their growth — if, 
indeed, they do grow, and are not rather put together 
upon principles of clock-w^ork. You never catch his 
mind in an undress. He never hints or suggests any- 
thing, but unlades his stock of ideas in perfect order 

15 and completeness. He brings his total wealth into com- 
pany, and gravely unpacks it. His riches are always 
about him. He never stoops to catch a glittering some- 
thing in your presence, to share it with you, before he 
quite knows whether it be true touch or not. You can- 

20 not cry halves to anything that he finds. He does not 
find, but bring. You never witness his first apprehen- 
sion of a thing. His understanding is always at its 
meridian — you never see the first dawn, the early 
streaks. — He has no falterings of self-suspicion. Sur- 

25 mises, guesses, misgivings, half -intuitions, semi-con- 



2-3. bring it to market in the green ear: submit their ideas be- 
fore they are mature, like corn brought to market in the green ear. 

7-8. The brain of a true Caledonian, etc. Having character- 
ized his own mind, Lamb now begins to describe the type of mind 
w^hich he conceives to be the exact opposite of his — that of the 
Scotchman — and to point out the basic differences which make 
agreement between the two impossible. 

17-18. glittering something: a brilliant inspiration. 

19. true touch: genuine. 

20. cry halves: claim your share (in the discussion). 



IMPERFECT SYMPATHIES 93 

sciousness, partial illuminations, dim instincts, embryo 
conceptions, have no place in his brain, or vocabulary. 
The twilight of dubiety never falls upon him. Is he 
orthodox — he has no doubts. Is he an infidel — he has 
none either. Between the affirmative and the negative 5 
there is no border-land with him. You cannot hover 
with him upon the confines of truth, or wander in the 
maze of a probable argument. He always keeps the 
path. You cannot make excursions with him — for he 
sets you right. His taste never fluctuates. His morality 10 
never abates. He cannot compromise, or understand 
middle actions. There can be but a right and a wrong. 
His conversation is as a book. His affirmations have the 
sanctity of an oath. You must speak upon the square 
with him. He stops a metaphor like a suspected person 15 
in an enemy's country. ^' A healthy book! '' — said one 
of his countrymen to me, who had ventured to give that 
appellation to John Buncle, — ' ' did I catch rightly what 
you said? I have heard of a man in health, and of a 
healthy state of body, but I do not see how that epithet 20 
can be properly applied to a book.'' Above all, you 
must beware of indirect expressions before a Caledonian. 
Clap an extinguisher upon your irony, if you are unhap- 
pily blest with a vein of it. Remember you are upon 
your oath. I have a print of a graceful female after 25 



3. The twilight of dubiety never falls upon him: no shadow of 
a doubt ever crosses his mind. 

7. the confines of truth: the dividing line between truth and 
falsehood. 

15. He stops a metaphor: he cannot tolerate a figure of speech, 
but must speak literally. 

18. John Buncle. See note, page 254. 

23. Clap an extinguisher upon: instantly suppress. An ex- 
tinguisher is a hollow cone used to set over the flame of a candle 
to extinguish it. 



94 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

Leonardo da Vinci, which I was showing off to Mr. . 

After he had examined it minutely, I ventured to ask 
him how he liked my beauty (a foolish name it goes 
by among my friends) — when he very gravely assured 
5 me, that ' ' he had considerable respect for my character 
and talents '' (so he was pleased to say), '' but had not 
given himself much thought about the degree of my 
personal pretensions. ' ' The misconception staggered 
me, but did not seem much to disconcert him. — Persons 

10 of this nation are particularly fond of affirming a truth 
— which nobody doubts. They do not so properly affirm, 
as annunciate it. They do indeed appear to have such 
a love of truth (as if, like virtue, it were valuable for 
itself) that all truth becomes equally valuable, whether 

15 the proposition that contains it be new or old, disputed, 
or such as is impossible to become a subject of disputa- 
tion. I was present not long since at a party of North 
Britons, where a son of Burns was expected; and hap- 
pened to drop a silly expression (in my South British 

"20 way), that I wished it were the father instead of the 
son — when four of them started up at once to inform 
me, that '' that was impossible, because he was dead." 
An impracticable wish, it seems, was more than they 
could conceive. Swift has hit off this part of their char- 

25 acter, namely, their love of truth, in his biting way, but 
with an illiberality that necessarily confines the passage 
to the margin.^ The tediousness of these people is cer- 

1 There are some people who think they sufficiently acquit them- 
selves, and entertain their company, with relating facts of no 
consequence, not at all out of the road of such common incidents 
as happen every day; and this I have observed more frequently 
among the Scots than any other nation, who are very careful not 
to omit the minutest circumstances of time or place; which kind 
of discourse, if it were not a little relieved by the uncouth terms 
and phrases, as well as accent and gesture peculiar to that 



IMPEKFECT SYMPATHIES 95 

tainly provoking. I wonder if they ever tire of one 
another! — In my early life I had a passionate fondness 
for the poetry of Burns. I have sometimes foolishly 
hoped to ingratiate myself with his countrymen by ex- 
pressing it. But I have always found that a true Scot 5 
resents your admiration of his compatriot, even more 
than he would your contempt of him. The latter he 
imputes to your ^' imperfect acquaintance with many 
of the words which he uses; '' and the same objection 
makes it a presumption in you to suppose that you can 10 
admire him. — Thomson they seem to have forgotten. 
Smollett they have neither forgotten nor forgiven for 
his delineation of Rory and his companion, upon their 
first introduction to our metropolis. — Speak of Smollett 
as a great genius, and they will retort upon you Hume's 15 
History compared with his Continuation of it. What 
if the historian had continued Humphrey Clinker? 

I have, in the abstract, no disrespect for Jews. They 
are a piece of stubborn antiquity, compared with which 
Stonehenge is in its nonage. They date beyond the 20 
pyramids. But I should not care to be in habits of 
familiar intercourse with any„of that nation. I confess 
that I have not the nerves to enter their synagogues. 
Old prejudices cling about me. I cannot shake off the 
story of Hugh of Lincoln. Centuries of injury, con- 25 
tempt, and hate, on the one side, — of cloaked revenge, 

country, would be hardly tolerable. — Hints towards an Essay on 
Conversation. 



13. Rory and his companion. In Smollett's novel, " Roderick 
Random," Rory and his companion. Strap, are made to appear 
like country greenhorns on their arrival in London. 

20. nonage: not of age; the period of legal infancy. 

20-21. date beyond the pyramids. The oldest of the pyramids 
(Cheops) is said to have been begun about 1500 B.C. 



96 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

^ dissimulation, and hate, on the other, between our and 
their fathers, must, and ought, to affect the blood of the 
children. I cannot believe it can run clear and kindly 
yet ; or that a few fine words, such as candour, liberality, 
5 the light of a nineteenth century, can close up the 
breaches of so deadly a disunion. A Hebrew is nowhere 
congenial to me. He is least distasteful on 'Change — 
for the mercantile spirit levels all distinctions, as are 
all beauties in the dark. I boldly confess that I do not 

10 relish the approximation of Jew and Christian, which has 
become so fashionable. The reciprocal endearments have, 
to me, something hypocritical and unnatural in them. 
I do not like to see the Church and Synagogue kissing 
and congeeing in awkward postures of an affected civil- 

15 ity. If they are converted, why do they not come over 
to us altogether? Why keep up a form of separation, 
when the life of it is fled? If they can sit with us at 
table, why do they keck at our cookery? I do not un- 
derstand these half convertites. Jews christianizing — 

20 Christians judaizing — puzzle me. I like fish or flesh. 
A moderate Jew is a more confounding piece of anomaly 
than a wet Quaker. The spirit of the synagogue is es- 
sentially separative, B would have been more in 

keeping if he had abided by the faith of his forefathers. 

25 There is a fine scorn in his face, which nature meant to 

be of Christians. The Hebrew spirit is strong in 

him, in spite of his proselytism. He cannot conquer the 
Shibboleth. How it breaks out, when he sings, "" The 



7. on 'Change: at the Exchange. 

10. the approximation: the bringing together of. 

14. congeeing: bowing; saluting in friendly fashion. 

18. keck: to show disgust; literally, to exhibit nausea, 

22. a wet Quaker: drunken Quaker. 

27. proselytism: being converted. 



IMPERFECT SYMPATHIES 97 

Children of Israel passed through the Red Sea! " The 
auditors, for the moment, are as Egyptians to him, and 
he rides over our necks in triumph. There is no mistak- 
ing him. B has a strong expression of sense in his 

countenance, and it is confirmed by his singing. The 5 
foundation of his vocal excellence is sense. He sings 
with understanding, as Kemble delivered dialogue. He 
would sing the Commandments, and give an appropriate 
character to each prohibition. His nation, in general, 
have not over-sensible countenances. How should they? 10 
— but you seldom see a silly expression among them. 
Gain, and the pursuit of gain, sharpen a man's visage. 
I never heard of an idiot being born among them. — 
Some admire the Jewish female-physiognomy. I admire 
it — but with trembling. Jael had those full dark in- 15 
scrutable eyes. 

In the Negro countenance you will often meet with 
strong traits of benignity. I have felt yearnings of ten- 
derness towards some of these faces — or rather masks — 
that have looked out kindly upon one in casual encoun- 20 
ters in the streets and highways. I love what Fuller 
beautifully calls — these ^' images of God cut in ebony." 
But I should not like to associate with them, to share 
my meals and my good-nights with them — because they 
are black. 25 

I love Quaker ways, and Quaker worship. I venerate 
the Quaker principles. It does me good for the rest of 
the day when I meet any of their people in my path. 
When I am ruffled or disturbed by any occurrence, the 
sight, or quiet voice of a Quaker, acts upon me as a ven- 30 
tilator, lightening the air, and taking off a load from the 



1. "The Children of Israel passed through the Red Sea"; 
from Handel's Oratorio, '' Israel in Egypt." 
7. Kemble, John (1757-1823), the famous actor. 



98 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

bosom. But I cannot like the Quakers (as Desdemona 
would say) '^ to live with them." I am all over sophis- 
ticated — with humours, fancies, craving hourly sym- 
pathy. I must have books, pictures, theatres, chit-chat, 
5 scandal, jokes, ambiguities, and a thousand whim- 
whams, which their simpler taste can do without. I 
should starve at their primitive banquet. My appetites 
are too high for the salads which (according to Evelyn) 
Eve dressed for the angel, my gusto too excited 

10 To sit a guest with Daniel at his pulse. 

The indirect answers which Quakers are often found 
to return to a question put to them may be explained, I 
think, without the vulgar assumption, that they are 
more given to evasion and equivocating than other 

15 people. They naturally look to their words more care- 
fully, and are more cautious of committing themselves. 
They have a peculiar character to keep up on this head. 
They stand in a manner upon their veracity. A Quaker 
is by law exempted from taking an oath. The custom 

20 of resorting to an oath in extreme cases, sanctified as 
it is by all religious antiquity, is apt (it must be con- 
fessed) to introduce into the laxer sort of minds the 
notion of two kinds of truth — the one applicable to the 
solemn affairs of justice, and the other to the common 

25 proceedings of daily intercourse. As truth bound upon 
the conscience by an oath can be but truth, so in the 
common affirmations of the shop and the market-place 
a latitude is expected, and conceded upon questions 



1-2. as Desdemona would say. Cf. " Othello," I, iii, 249-251. 
The Italian Desdemona married the Moor, Othello. 

8-9. salads which Eve dressed for the angel. Cf. " Paradise 
Lost," V, 315-450. 

10. Cf. "Paradise Regained," II, 278. 



IMPERFECT SYMPATHIES 99 

wanting this solemn covenant. Something less than 
truth satisfies. It is common to hear a person say, 
'' You do not expect me to speak as if I were upon my 
oath.'' Hence a great deal of incorrectness and inad- 
vertency, short of falsehood, creeps into ordinary con- 5 
versation; and a kind of secondary or laic-truth is 
tolerated, where clergy-truth — oath-truth, by the nature 
of the circumstances, is not required. A Quaker knows 
none of this distinction. His simple affirmation being 
received, upon the most sacred occasions, without any 10 
further test, stamps a value upon the words which he is 
to use upon the most indifferent topics of life. He looks 
to them, naturally, with more severity. You can have of 
him no more than his word. He knows, if he is caught 
tripping in a casual expression, he forfeits, for himself, 15 
at least, his claim to the invidious exemption He knows 
that his syllables are weighed — and how far a conscious- 
ness of this particular watchfulness, exerted against a 
person, has a tendency to produce indirect answers, and 
a diverting of the question by honest means, might be 20 
illustrated, and the practice justified, by a more sacred 
example than is proper to be adduced upon this occa- 
sion. The admirable presence of mind, which is notori- 
ous in Quakers upon all contingencies, might be traced 
to this imposed self-watchfulness — if it did not seem 25 
rather an humble and secular scion of that old stock of 
religious constancy, which never bent or faltered, in the 
Primitive Friends, or gave way to the winds of persecu- 
tion, to the violence of judge or accuser, under trials 
and racking examinations. " You will never be the 30 



21-22. by a more sacred example. Lamb is referring to the 
equivocal answers Christ made his enemies. Cf. Luke, xi, 53-54; 
Mark, xii, 13-34; Matthew, xxii, 15-46. 

26. secular scion: worldly descendant. 



100 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

wiser, if I sit here answering your questions till mid- 
night, ' ' said one of those upright Justieers to Penn, who 
had been putting law-cases with a puzzling subtlety. 
'' Thereafter as the answers may be/' retorted the 
5 Quaker. The astonishing composure of this people is 
sometimes ludicrously displayed in lighter instances. — 
I was travelling in a stage-coach with three male 
Quakers, buttoned up in the straightest non-conformity 
of their sect. AVe stopped to bait at Andover, where a 

10 meal, partly tea apparatus, partly supper, was set be- 
fore us. My friends confined themselves to the tea-table. 
I in my way took supper. When the landlady brought 
in the bill, the eldest of my companions discovered that 
she had charged for both meals. This was resisted. 

15 Mine hostess was very clamorous and positive. Some 
mild arguments were used on the part of the Quakers, 
for which the heated mind of the good lady seemed by 
no means a fit recipient. The guard came in with his 
usual peremptory notice. The Quakers pulled out their 

20 money, and formally tendered it — so much for tea — I, 
in humble imitation, tendering mine — for the supper 
which I had taken. She would not relax in her de- 
mand. So they all three quietly put up their silver, as 
did myself, and marched out of the room, the eldest and 

25 gravest going first, w4th myself closing up the rear, who 
thought I could not do better than follow the example 
of such grave and warrantable personages. We got 
in. The .steps went up. The coach drove off. The mur- 



4. " Thereafter as the answers may be." Penn's retort in- 
timates, of course, that when they begin to answer him straight- 
forwardly he win have no trouble in understanding. 

9. to bait: to take refreshment. 

18-19. his usual peremptory notice: that the coach was about 
to start. 



IMPEEFECT SYMPATHIES 101 

murs of mine hostess, not very indistinctly or ambigu- 
ously pronounced, became after a time inaudible — and 
now my conscience, which the whimsical scene had for 
a while suspended, beginning to give some twitches, I 
waited, in the hope that some justification w^ould be 5 
offered by these serious persons for the seeming injustice 
of their conduct. To my great surprise, not a syllable 
was dropped on the subject. They sate as mute as at a 
meeting. At length the eldest of them broke silence, by 
inquiring of his next neighbour, ^ ^ Hast thee heard how 10 
indigos go at the India House ? ' ' and the question oper- 
ated as a soporific on my moral feeling as far as Exeter. 



11-12. operated as a soporific on my moral feeling: put my 
conscience to sleep. 



X. THE OLD BENCHERS OF THE INNER 

TEMPLE 

I WAS born, and passed the first seven years of my life, 
in the Temple. Its church, its halls, its gardens, its 
fountain, its river, I had almost said — for in those young 
years, what was this king of rivers to me but a stream 
5 that watered our pleasant places? these are of my old- 
est recollections. I repeat, to this day, no verses to my- 
self more frequently, or with kindlier emotion, than 
those of Spenser, where he speaks of this spot. 

There when they came, whereas those bricky towers, 
10 The which on Themmes brode aged back doth ride. 

Where now the studious lawyers have their bowers, 
There whylome wont the Templar knights to bide. 
Till they decayed through pride. 

Indeed, it is the most elegant spot in the metropolis. 
15 What a transition for a countryman visiting London for 
the first time — the passing from the crowded Strand or 
Fleet Street, by unexpected avenues, into its magnificent 
ample squares, its classic green recesses ! What a cheer- 
ful, liberal look hath that portion of it, which, from 



4. king of rivers: the Thames. 

9-13. Spenser's " Prothalamion," VIII. 

12. There formerly the Knights Templar were accustomed to 
abide. See note on " The Temple " ; also Introduction, pages 
xliii-ff. 

102 



THE OLD BENCHERS 103 

three sides, overlooks the greater garden: that goodly 
pile 

Of building strong, albeit of Paper hight, 

confronting, with massy contrast, the lighter, older, 
more fantastically shrouded one, named of Harcourt, 5 
with the cheerful Crown-office Row (place of my kindly 
engendure), right opposite the stately stream, which 
washes the garden-foot with her yet scarcely trade-pol- 
luted waters, and seems but just weaned from her 
Twickenham Naiades! a man would give something to 10 
have been born in such places. What a collegiate as- 
pect has that fine Elizabethan hall, where the fountain 
plays, which I have made to rise and fall, how many 
times ! to the astoundment of the young urchins, my 
contemporaries, who, not being able to guess at its recon- 15 
dite machinery, were almost tempted to hail the won- 
drous work as magic ! What an antique air had the now 
almost effaced sun-dials, with their moral inscriptions, 
seeming coevals with that Time which they measured, 
and to take their revelations of its flight immediately 20 
from heaven, holding correspondence with the fountain 
of light! How would the dark line steal imperceptibly 



3. of Paper hight: caUed the Paper Buildings. These are oppo- 
site King's Bench Walk. Hight is from the Old English highten, 
to be called. 

5. named of Harcourt: the building named after Simon Har- 
court, Lord Chancellor. 

6-7. kindly engendure: natural birth; an archaic meaning of 
kindly. Lamb was born in Crown Office Row. 

12. fine Elizabethan hall: the Inner Temple (in the architecture 
of the time of Queen Elizabeth). 

15-16. recondite: hidden. 

22. dark line: the shadow of the marker on the face of the 
dial, which marks the hours. 



104 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

on, watched by the eye of childhood, eager to detect its 
movement, never catched, nice as an evanescent cloud, or 
the first arrests of sleep ! 

Ah! yet doth beauty like a dial-hand 
5 Steal from his figure, and no pace perceived! 

What a dead thing is a clock, with its ponderous em- 
bowelments of lead and brass, its pert or solemn dulness 
of communication, compared with the simple altar-like 
structure, and silent heart-language of the old dial ! It 

10 stood as the garden god of Christian gardens. Why is 
it almost everywhere vanished? If its business-use be 
superseded by more elaborate inventions, its moral uses, 
its beauty, might have pleaded for its continuance. It 
spoke of moderate labours, of pleasures not protracted 

15 after sunset, of temperance, and good hours. It was 
the primitive clock, the horologe of the first world. 
Adam could scarce have missed it in Paradise. It was 
the measure appropriate for sweet plants and flowers to 
spring by, for the birds to apportion their silver 

20 warblings by, for flocks to pasture and be led to fold by. 
The shepherd " carved it out quaintly in the sun; " 
and, turning philosopher by the very occupation, pro- 
vided it with mottos more touching than tombstones. 
It was a pretty device of the gardener, recorded by Mar- 

25 veil, who, in the days of artificial gardening, made a 
dial out of herbs and flowers. I must quote his verses 
a little higher up, for they are full, as all his serious 
poetry was, of a witty delicacy. They will not come in 



4. Shakespeare's " Sonnet CIV." 

16. horologe: literaUy, hour-teUer; time-piece. 

17. missed it: done without it. 

21. " carved it out quaintly in the sun." Cf. " III Henry VI," 
n, V, 24. 



THE OLD BENCHERS 105 

awkwardly, I hope, in a talk of fountains and sun-dials. 
He is speaking of sweet garden scenes : 

What wonderous life is this I lead! 

Ripe apples drop about my head. 

The luscious clusters of the vine 5 

Upon my mouth do crush their wine. 

The nectarine, and curious peach. 

Into my hands themselves do reach. 

Stumbling on melons, as I pass, 

Insnared with flowers, I fall on grass. 10 

Meanwhile the mind from pleasure less 

Withdraws into its happiness; 

The mind, that ocean, where each kind 

Does straight its own resemblance find; 

Yet it creates, transcending these, 15 

Far other worlds and other seas; 

Annihilating all that's made 

To a green thought in a green shade. 

Here at the fountain's sliding foot. 

Or at some fruit-tree's mossy root, 20 

Casting the body's vest aside. 

My soul into the boughs does glide: 

There, like a bird, it sits and sings, 

Then whets and claps its silver wings; 

And, till prepared for longer flight, 25 

Waves in its plumes the various light. 

How well the skilful gardener drew, 

Of flowers and herbs, this dial new! 



3. For the entire poem from which this quotation is made, 
see Palgrave's " Golden Treasury " ( First Series ) , CXI. 

13-14. " where each kind does straight its own resemblance 
find." According to an old belief the ocean was supposed to con- 
tain a counterpart of every kind of plant and animal life on the 
earth. 

21. body's vest. The body is spoken of as the clothing of the 
spirit, which, for greater freedom, it casts aside. 
11 



106 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

Where, from above, the milder sun 
Does through a fragrant zodiac run: 
And, as it works, the industrious bee 
Computes its time as well as we. 
5 How could such sweet and wholesome hours 

Be reckoned, but with herbs and flowers ? ^ 

The artificial fountains of the metropolis are, in like 
manner, fast vanishing. Most of them are dried up, or 
bricked over. Yet, where one is left, as in that little 

10 green nook behind the South-Sea House, what a fresh- 
ness it gives to the dreary pile ! Four little winged mar- 
ble boys used to play their virgin fancies, spouting out 
ever fresh streams from their innocent-w^anton lips, in 
the square of Lincoln's Inn, when I w^as no bigger than 

15 they were figured. They are gone, and the spring 
choked up. The fashion, they tell me, is gone by, and 
these things are esteemed childish. Why not then gratify 
children, by letting them stand? Lawyers, I suppose, 
were children, once. They are awakening images to 

20 them at least. Why must everything smack of man, 
and mannish ? Is the w^orld all grown up ? Is childhood 
dead? Or is there not in the bosoms of the wisest and 
the best some of the child's heart left, to respond to its 
earliest enchantments? The figures were grotesque. Are 

25 the stiff- wigged living figures, that still flitter and chat- 
ter about that area, less Gothic in appearance ? or is the 
splutter of their hot rhetoric one half so refreshing and 
innocent as the little cool playful streams those exploded 
cherubs uttered? 

1 From a copy of verses entitled The Garden. 



2. zodiac: the sun's circuit. For the purely astronomical mean- 
ing of the word fee the dictionary. 
26. Gothic: rude; barbaric. 



THE OLD BENCHEKS 107 

They have lately gothicized the entrance to the Inner 
Temple-hall, and the library front, to assimilate them, I 
suppose, to the body of the hall, which they do not at all 
resemble. What is become of the winged horse that 
stood over the former ? a stately arms ! and who has re- 5 
moved those frescoes of the Virtues, which Italianized 
the end of the Paper-buildings? — my first hint of alle- 
gory ! They must account to me for these things, which 
I miss so greatly. 

The terrace is, indeed, left, which we used to call the IG 
parade ; but the traces are passed away of the footsteps 
which made its pavement aw^ful ! It is become common 
and profane. The old benchers had it almost sacred to 
themselves, in the fore part of the day at least. They 
might not be sided or jostled. Their air and dress as- 15 
serted the parade. You left wide spaces betwixt you, 
when you passed them. We walk on even terms with 

their successors. The roguish eye of J 11, ever ready 

to be delivered of a jest, almost invites a stranger to vie 
a repartee with it. But what insolent familiar durst 20 
have mated Thomas Coventry? — whose person was a 
quadrate, his step massy and elephantine, his face 
square as the lion's, his gait peremptory and path-keep- 
ing, indivertible from his way as a moving column, the 
scarecrow of his inferiors, the brow-beater of equals and 25 
superiors, who made a solitude of children wherever he 

5. arms: coat-of-arms. The arms of the Inner Temple are a 
winged horse rampant, blue, on a ground of gold. 

12. awful: not in the modern slang sense, but in the original 
meaning, " full of awe," '* awe-inspiring." 

13. profane: vulgar; made common by the crowd. 

18. J ^11: Jekyll, Master in Chancery; called to the Bench 

in 1805. 

21. mated: matched himself against (in repartee). 

22. quadrate: square. 



108 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

came, for they fled his insufferable presence, as they 
would have shunned an Elisha bear. His growl was as 
thunder in their ears, whether he spake to them in mirth 
or in rebuke, his invitatory notes being, indeed, of all, 
5 the most repulsive and horrid. Clouds of snuff, ag- 
gravating the natural terrors of his speech, broke from 
each majestic nostril, darkening the air. He took it, 
not by pinches, but a palmful at once, diving for it 
under the mighty flaps of his old-fashioned waistcoat 

10 pocket; his waistcoat red and angry, his coat dark 
rappee, tinctured by dye original, and by adjuncts, 
with buttons of obsolete gold. And so he paced the 
terrace. 

By his side a milder form was sometimes to be seen; 

15 the pensive gentility of Samuel Salt. They were co- 
evals, and had nothing but that and their benchership 
in common. In politics Salt was a Whig, and Coventry 
a staunch Tory. Many a sarcastic growl did the latter 
cast out — for Coventry had a rough spinous humour — 

20 at the political confederates of his associate, which re- 
bounded from the gentle bosom of the latter like cannon- 
balls from wool. You could not ruffle Samuel Salt. 

S. had the reputation of being a very clever man, and 
of excellent discernment in the chamber practice of the 

25 law. I suspect his knowledge did not amount to much. 
When a case of difficult disposition of money, testa- 
mentary or otherwise, came before him, he ordinarily 



2. Elisha bear. See II Kings, ii, 23-25. 

4. invitatory notes: coaxing tones. 

10-11. rappee: a coarse, dark snuff. Much of this in faUing 
upon his coat had " tinctured it by dye original." 

19. spinous: thorny. 

24. chamber practice: the work of counsel at law, as contrasted 
with practice before the court. 



THE OLD BENCHERS 109 

handed it over with a few instructions to his man Lovel, 
who was a quick little fellow, and would despatch it out 
of hand by the light of natural understanding, of which 
he had an uncommon share. It was incredible what re- 
pute for talents S. enjoyed by the mere trick of gravity. 5 
He was a shy man ; a child might pose him in a minute 
— indolent and procrastinating to the last degree. Yet 
men would give him credit for vast application in spite 
of himself. He was not to be trusted with himself with 
impunity. He never dressed for a dinner party but he 10 
forgot his sword — they wore swords then — or some other 
necessary part of his equipage. Lovel had his eye upon 
him on all these occasions, and ordinarily gave him his 
cue. If there was anything which he could speak un- 
seasonably, he was sure to do it. — He was to dine at a 15 
relative's of the unfortunate Miss Blandy on the day of 
her execution; and L., who had a w^ary foresight of his 
probable hallucinations, before he set out, schooled him 
with great anxiety not in any possible manner to allude 
to her story that day. S. promised faithfully to observe 20 
the injunction. He had not been seated in the parlour, 
where the company was expecting the dinner summons, 
four minutes, when, a pause in the conversation ensu- 
ing, he got up, looked out of window, and pulling down 
his ruffles — an ordinary motion with him — observed, ^ ^ it 25 
w^as a gloomy day,'' and added, ^^ Miss Blandy must 
be hanged by this time, I suppose." Instances of this 



1. Lovel: John Lamb, the father of Charles. See note on 
page 267. 

12. equipage: equipment. 

13-14. gave him his cue: told him when and what to speak. 

18. hallucinations: mistaken notions, probable blunders that 
Salt might make. 

25. his ruffles: the lace cuffs then in vogue. 



110 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

sort were perpetual. Yet S. was thought by some of the 
greatest men of his time a fit person to be consulted, not 
alone in matters pertaining to the law, but in the or- 
dinary niceties and embarrassments of conduct — from 
5 force of manner entirely. He never laughed. He had 
the same good fortune among the female world, — was a 
known toast with the ladies, and one or two are said to 
have died for love of him — I suppose, because he never 
trifled or talked gallantry with them, or paid them, in- 

10 deed, hardly common attentions. He had a fine face and 
person, but wanted, methought, the spirit that should 
have shown them off with advantage to the women. His 

eye lacked lustre. — Not so, thought Susan P ; who, 

at the advanced age of sixty, was seen, in the cold even- 

15 ing time, unaccompanied, wetting the pavement of 

B d Row with tears that fell in drops which might 

be heard, because her friend had died that day — he, 
whom she had pursued with a hopeless passion for the 
last forty years — a passion which years could not extin- 

20 guish or abate; nor the long resolved, yet gently en- 
forced, puttings off of unrelenting bachelorhood dis- 
suade from its cherished purpose. Mild Susan P , 

thou hast now thy friend in heaven ! 

Thomas Coventry was a cadet of the noble family of 

25 that name. He passed his youth in contracted circum- 
stances, which gave him early those parsimonious habits 
w^hich in after-life never forsook him; so that, with one 
windfall or another, about the time I knew him he was 



6-7. a known toast: known as one whose health would be 
drunk by the ladies. 

16. B d Row: Bedford Row, Strand, where lawyers con- 
gregate. 

21. puttings off: repulses. 

24. cadet: younger son. 



THE OLD BENCHEKS 111 

master of four or five hundred thousand pounds; nor 
did he look, or walk, worth a moidore less. He lived in 
a gloomy house opposite the pump in Serjeant's Inn, 
Fleet Street. J., the counsel, is doing self-imposed 
penance in it, for what reason I divine not, at this day. 5 
C. had an agreeable seat at North Cray, where he sel- 
dom spent above a day or two at a time in the summer ; 
but preferred, during the hot months, standing at his 
window in this damp, close, well-like mansion, to watch, 
as he said, ' ' the maids drawing water all day long. ' ' I 10 
suspect he had his within-door reasons for the prefer- 
ence. Hie currus et arma fiiere. He might think his 
treasures more safe. His house had the aspect of a 
strong box. C. was a close hunks — a hoarder rather 
than a miser — or, if a miser, none of the mad Elwes 15 
breed, who have brought discredit upon a character, 
which cannot exist without certain admirable points of 
steadiness and unity of purpose. One may hate a true 
miser, but cannot, I suspect, so easily despise him. By 
taking care of the pence, he is often enabled to part with 20 
the pounds, upon a scale that leaves us careless generous 
fellows halting at an immeasurable distance behind. C. 
gave away thirty thousand pounds at once in his life- 
time to a blind charity. His housekeeping was severely 
looked after, but he kept the table of a gentleman. He 25 
would know who came in and who went out of his house, 
but his kitchen chimney was never suffered to freeze. 



2. moidore: an old Portuguese gold coin, worth $6.50. 

4-5. doing self-imposed penance in it: voluntarily undergoing 
the inconvenience of living in it. 

12. Hie currus et arma fuere: here were his chariot and his 
arms. Cf. Virgil's "^neid," I, 16. 

14. hunks: a miserly fellow. 

24. blind charity: an institution for the blind. 



112 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

Salt was his opposite in this, as in all — never knew 
what he was worth in the world ; and having but a com- 
petency for his rank, which his indolent habits were lit- 

f tie calculated to improve, might have suffered severely 
5 if he had not had honest people about him. Lovel took 
care of everything. He was at once his clerk, his good 
servant, his dresser, his friend, his '^ flapper," his guide, 
stop-watch, auditor, treasurer. He did nothing without 
consulting Lovel, or failed in anything without expect- 

10 ing and fearing his admonishing. He put himself al- 
most too much in his hands, had they not been the purest 
in the world. He resigned his title almost to respect as 
a master, if L. could ever have forgotten for a moment 
that he was a servant. 

15 I knew this Lovel. He was a man of an incorrigible 
and losing honesty. A good fellow withal, and " would 
strike." In the cause of the oppressed he never consid- 
ered inequalities, or calculated the number of his op- 
ponents. He once wrested a sword out of the hand of a 

20 man of quality that had drawn upon him ; and pom- 
elled him severely with the hilt of it. The swordsman 
had offered insult to a female — an occasion upon which 
no odds against him could have prevented the inter- 
ference of Lovel. He would stand next day bare-headed 

25 to the same person, modestly to excuse his interference 
— for L. never forgot rank, where something better was 
not concerned. L. was the liveliest little fellow breath- 
ing, had a face as gay as Garrick's, whom he was said 
greatly to resemble (I have a portrait of him which con- 

30 firms it), possessed a fine turn for humorous poetry — 
next to Swift and Prior — moulded heads in clay or plas- 
ter of Paris to admiration, by the dint of natural genius 

lG-17. "would strike": act with decision. 

31. Prior, Matthew (1664-1721): English poet. 



THE OLD BENCHERS 113 

merely; turned eribbage-boards, and such small cabinet 
toys, to perfection; took a hand at quadrille or bowls 
with equal facility ; made punch better than any man of 
his degree in England ; had the merriest quips and con- 
ceits, and was altogether as brimful of rogueries and 5 
inventions as you could desire. He was a brother of the 
angle, moreover, and just such a free, hearty, honest 
companion as Mr. Izaak Walton would have chosen to 
go a-fishing wdth. I saw him in his old age and the de- 
cay of his faculties, palsy-smitten, in the last sad stage 10 
of human weakness — ' \ a remnant most forlorn of what 
he was,'' — yet even then his eye would light up upon 
the mention of his favourite Garrick. He was greatest, 
he would say, in Bayes — '' was upon the stage nearly 
throughout the whole performance, and as busy as a 15 
bee." At intervals, too, he would speak of his former 
life, and how he came up a little boy from Lincoln to 
go to service, and how his mother cried at parting with 
him, and how he returned, after some few years' absence, 
in his smart new livery to see her, and she blessed herself 20 
at the change, and could hardly be brought to believe 
that it was '^ her own bairn." And then, the excite- 
ment subsiding, he would weep, till I have wished that 
sad second-childhood might have a mother still to lay 
its head upon her lap. But the common mother of us 25 
all in no long time after received him gently into hers. 
With Coventry, and with Salt, in their walks upon the 



6-7. brother of the angle: member of the brotherhood of 
fishermen. 

8. Izaak Walton. See note on page 254. 

11-12. " a remnant most forlorn of what he was." Cf. Lamb's 
lines, " Written on the Day of My Aunt's Funeral." 

14. Bayes: the chief character in Geo. Villiers' play, "The 
Rehearsal," intended as a caricature of Dryden. 

25-26. common mother of us all: the earth. 



114 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

terrace, most commonly Peter Pierson would join, to 
make up a third. They did not walk linked arm in arm 
in those days — " as now our stout triumvirs sweep the 
streets, '' — but generally with both hands folded behind 
5 them for state, or with one at least behind, the other 
carrying a cane. P. was a benevolent, but not a pre- 
possessing man. He had that in his face which you 
could not term unhappiness; it rather implied an in- 
capacity of being happy. His cheeks were colourless, 

10 even to whiteness. His look was uninviting, resembling 
(but without his sourness) that of our great philan- 
thropist. I know that he did good acts, but I could 
never make out what he was. Contemporary with these, 
but subordinate, was Daines Barrington — another pdd- 

15 ity — he w^alked burly and square — in imitation, I think, 
of Coventry — howbeit he attained not to the dignity of 
his prototype. Nevertheless, he did pretty well, upon 
the strength of being a tolerable antiquarian, and hav- 
ing a brother a bishop. When the account of his year's 

20 treasureship came to be audited, the following singular 
charge was unanimously disallowed by the bench: 
" Item, disbursed Mr. Allen, the gardener, twenty shil- 
lings, for stuff to poison the sparrows, by my orders." 
Next to him was old Barton — a jolly negation, who took 

25 upon him the ordering of the bills of fare for the parlia- 
ment chamber, where the benchers dine — answering to 
the combination rooms at college — much to the easement 
of his less epicurean brethren. I know nothing more of 



1. Peter Pierson: called to the Bench, 1800; died 1808. 

14. Daines Barrington: antiquary, naturalist, and friend of 
White of Selbourne; called to the Bench, 1777; died 1800. 

24. Barton, Thomas: called to the Bench, 1775; died 1791. 
jolly negation: a jovial fellow of colorless character. 

28. epicurean: indulgent of the appetite. 



THE OLD BENCHERS 115 

him. — Then Read, and Twopeny — Read, good-humoured 
and personable — Twopeny, good-humoured, but thin, 
and felicitous in jests upon his own figure. If T. was 
thin, Wharry was attenuated and fleeting. Many must 
remember him (for he was rather of later date) and his 5 
singular gait, which was performed by three steps and 
a jump regularly succeeding. The steps were little ef- 
forts, like that of a child beginning to w^alk; the jump 
comparatively vigorous, as a foot to an inch. AVhere 
he learned this figure, or w^hat occasioned it, I could 10 
never discover. It was neither graceful in itself, nor 
seemed to answer the purpose any better than common 
walking. The extreme tenuity of his frame, I suspect, 
set him upon it. It was a trial of poising. Twopeny 
would often rally him upon his leanness, and hail him 15 
as Brother Lusty ; but W. had no relish of a joke. His 
features were spiteful. I have heard that he would 
pinch his cat's ears extremely, when anything had of- 
fended him. Jackson — the omniscient Jackson he was 
called — was of this period. He had the reputation of 20 
possessing more multifarious knowledge than any man 
of his time. He w^as the Friar Bacon of the less literate 
portion of the Temple. I remember a pleasant passage, 
of the cook applying to him, with much formality of 
apology, for instructions how to write down edge bone 25 
of beef in his bill of commons. He was supposed to 

L Read, John: called to the Bench, 1792; died 1804. Two- 
peny, Richard: a stockbroker who lived in the Temple. Ainger 
says he never was one of the Benchers. He died in 1809. 

2. personable: of good personal appearance. 

4. Wharry, John: called to the Bench, 1801; died 1812. atten- 
uated and fleeting: thin and impalpable as a ghost. 

19. Jackson, Richard: called to the Bench, 1770; died 1787. He 
was so widely read that Dr. Johnson styled him " the all- 
knowing." 



116 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

know, if any man in the world did. He decided the 
orthography to be — as I have given it — fortifying his 
authority with such anatomical reasons as dismissed the 
manciple (for the time) learned and happy. Some do 
5 spell it yet perversely, aitch bone, from a fanciful re- 
semblance between its shape, and that of the aspirate so 
denominated. I had almost forgotten Mingay with the 
iron hand — but he was somewhat later. He had lost his 
right hand by some accident, and supplied it with a 

10 grappling hook, which he wielded with a tolerable 
adroitness. I detected the substitute, before I was old 
enough to reason whether it were artificial or not. I 
remember the astonishment it raised in me. He was a 
blustering, loud-talking person; and I reconciled the 

15 phenomenon to my ideas as an emblem of power — some- 
what like the horns in the forehead of Michael Angelo 's 
Moses. Baron Maseres, who walks (or did till very 
lately) in the costume of the reign of George the Sec- 
ond, closes my imperfect recollections of the old bench- 

20 ers of the Inner Temple. 

Fantastic forms, whither are ye fled? Or, if the like 
of you exist, why exist they no more for me ? Ye inex- 
plicable, half-understood appearances, why comes in 
reason to tear away the preternatural mist, bright or 

25 gloomy, that enshrouded you? "Why make ye so sorry 
a figure in my relation, who made up to me — to my 
childish eyes — the mythology of the Temple? In those 
days I saw Gods, as ' ' old men covered with a mantle, ' ' 



5. aitch bone: the "H" bone, the rump of beef. 
7. Mingay, James: called to the Bench, 1785; died 1787. 
17. Baron Maseres: born 1731; died 1824. 
26. relation: narrative. 

28. " old men covered with a mantle." See page 123, line 30. 
This is Lamb's own idea of a phantom peculiarly terrible. 



THE OLD BENCHERS 117 

walking upon the earth. Let the dreams of classic idol- 
atry perish, — extinct be the fairies and fairy trumpery 
of legendary fabling, — in the heart of childhood, there 
will, for ever, spring up a well of innocent or wholesome 
superstition — the seeds of exaggeration will be busy there, 5 
and vital — from every-day forms educing the unknown 
and the uncommon. In that little Goshen there will be 
light, when the grown world flounders about in the dark- 
ness of sense and materiality. While childhood, and 
while dreams, reducing childhood, shall be left, imagina- 10 
tion shall not have spread her holy wings totally to fly 
the earth. 

P.S. — I have done injustice to the soft shade of Sam- 
uel Salt. See what it is to trust to imperfect memory, 
and the erring notices of childhood ! Yet I protest I 15 
always thought that he had been a bachelor ! This gen- 
tleman, R. N. informs me, married young, and losing 
his lady in child-bed, within the first year of their union, 
fell into a deep melancholy, from the effects of which, 
probably, he never thoroughly recovered. In what a 20 
new light does this place his rejection (0 call it by a 

gentler name!) of mild Susan P , unravelling into 

beauty certain peculiarities of this very shy and retiring 
character! — Henceforth let no one receive the narra- 
tives of Elia for true records ! They are, in truth, but 25 
shadows of fact — verisimilitudes, not verities — or sit- 
ting but upon the remote edges and outskirts of history. 
He is no such honest chronicler as R. N., and would have 
done better perhaps to have consulted that gentleman, 



2. trumpery: nonsense. 

7. Goshen. See note on page 250. While the plague of dark- 
ness was over Egypt, Goshen was light. 

10. reducing childhood: bringing childhood back again. 



118 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

before he sent these incondite reminiscences to press. 
But the worthy sub-treasurer — who respects his old and 
his new masters — would but have been puzzled at the 
indecorous liberties of Elia. The good man wots not, 
5 peradventure, of the license which Magazines have ar- 
rived at in this plain-speaking age, or hardly dreams of 
their existence beyond the Gentleman's — his furthest 
monthly excursions in this nature having been long con- 
fined to the holy ground of honest Urban' s obituary. 

10 May it be long before his own name shall help to swell 
those columns of unenvied flattery ! — Meantime, ye 
New Benchers of the Inner Temple, cherish him kindly, 
for he is himself the kindliest of human creatures. 
Should infirmities overtake him — he is yet in green and 

15 vigorous senility — make allowances for them, remember- 
ing that '^ ye yourselves are old.'' So may the Winged 
Horse, your ancient badge and cognizance, still flourish ! 
so may future Hookers and Seldens illustrate your 
church and chambers! so may the sparrows, in default 

20 of more melodious quiristers, unpoisoned hop about 
your walks ! so may the fresh-coloured and cleanly nur- 
sery-maid, who, by leave, airs her playful charge in 
your stately gardens, drop her prettiest blushing curtsy 
as ye pass, reductive of juvenescent emotion; so may 

25 the younkers of this generation eye you, pacing your 
stately terrace, with the same superstitious veneration, 
with which the child Elia gazed on the Old "Worthies 
that solemnized the parade before ye ! 



1. incondite: rough; unfinished. 

16. " ye yourselves are old." Cf . " King Lear," II, iv, 190. 
16-17. Winged Horse. See footnote to page 107, line 5. 
20. unpoisoned. See page 114, lines 22-23. 

24. reductive of juvenescent emotion: recalling the emotions of 
youth. 



XI. WITCHES AND OTHER NIGHT-FEARS 

We are too hasty when we set down our ancestors in 
the gross for fools, for the monstrous inconsistencies (as 
they seem to us) involved in their creed of witchcraft. 
In the relations of this visible world we find them to 
have been as rational, and shrewd to detect an historic 5 
anomaly, as ourselves. But when once the invisible 
world was supposed to be opened, and the lawless 
agency of bad spirits assumed, what measures of proba- 
bility, of decency, of fitness, or proportion — of that 
which distinguishes the likely from the palpable absurd 10 
— could they have to guide them in the rejection or ad- 
mission of any particular testimony? — That maidens 
pined away, wasting inwardly as their waxen images 
consumed before a fire — that corn was lodged, and cattle 
lamed — that whirlwinds uptore in diabolic revelry the 15 
oaks of the forest — or that spits and kettles only danced 
a fearful-innocent vagary about some rustic's kitchen 
when no wind was stirring — were all equally probable 
where no law of agency was understood. That the 
prince of the powers of darkness, passing by the flower 20 
and pomp of the earth, should lay preposterous siege to 
the weak fantasy of indigent eld — has neither likelihood 



5-6. historic anomaly: something which the advance of history 
has pronounced an absurdity of past ignorance. 

22. weak fantasy of indigent eld: the feeble imaginings of poor 
old people. 

119 



120 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

nor unlikelihood a priori to us, who have no measure to 
guess at his policy, or standard to estimate what rate 
those anile souls may fetch in the deviFs market. Nor, 
when the wicked are expressly symbolized by a goat, 
5 was it to be wondered at so much, that he should come 
sometimes in that body, and assert his metaphor. — That 
the intercourse was opened at all between both worlds 
was perhaps the mistake — but that once assumed, I see 
no reason for disbelieving one attested story of this 

10 nature more than another on the score of absurdity. 
There is no law to judge of the lawless, or canon by 
which a dream may be criticized. 

I have sometimes thought that I could not have ex- 
isted in the days of received witchcraft ; that I could not 

15 have slept in a village where one of those reputed hags 
dwelt. Our ancestors were bolder or more obtuse. 
Amidst the universal belief that these wretches were in 
league with the author of all evil, holding hell tributary 
to their muttering, no simple Justice of the Peace seems 

20 to have scrupled issuing, or silly Headborough serving, 
a warrant upon them — as if they should subpoena Satan ! 
— Prospero in his boat, with his books and wand about 



I. a priori: reasoning from past experience. 

3. anile: old woman's. 

4. wicked . . . symbolized by a goat. Cf. Matthew, xxv, 31-46. 

5. he: the devil. 

6. assert his metaphor: prove the truth of the figurative 
comparison. 

II. canon: a standard of judgment. 

18-19. holding hell tributary to their muttering: could com- 
mand the powers of darkness by their incantations. 

21. subpoena: to command appearance in court under penalty 
for failure to appear. 

22. Prospero: the good magician in "The Tempest." Cf. Act 
I, Sc. ii. 



WITCHES AND OTHER NIGHT-FEARS 121 

him, suffers himself to be conveyed away at the mercy 
of his enemies to an unknown island. He might have 
raised a storm or two, we think, on the passage. His 
acquiescence is in exact analogy to the non-resistance of 
witches to the constituted powers. — What stops the 5 
Fiend in Spenser from tearing Guyon to pieces — or who 
had made it a condition of his prey, that Guyon must 
take assay of the glorious bait — we have no guess. We 
do not know the laws of that country. 

From my childhood I was extremely inquisitive about 10 
witches and witch-stories. My maid, and more legend- 
ary aunt, supplied me with good store. But I shall men- 
tion the accident which directed my curiosity originally 
into this channel. In my father's book-closet, the His- 
tory of the Bible, by Stackhouse, occupied a distin- 15 
guished station. The pictures with which it abounds — 
one of the ark, in particular, and another of Solomon's 
temple, delineated with all the fidelity of ocular ad- 
measurement, as if the artist had been upon the spot — 
attracted my childish attention. There was a picture, 20 
too, of the Witch raising up Samuel, which I wish that 
I had never seen. We shall come to that hereafter. 
Stackhouse is in two huge tomes — and there was a pleas- 
ure in removing folios of that magnitude, which, with 



3-4. His acquiescence is in exact analogy, etc.: Prospero's sub- 
mission to the decree of banishment can be as little understood 
as the helplessness of the witches when summoned into court. 
If they can command hell, why should they thus submit without 
opposition ? 

8. take assay: make a test of. 

18-19. delineated with all the fidelity of ocular admeasurement: 
drawn as faithfully as though the artist had really seen it. 

21. the Witch raising up Samuel: the Witch of Endor summon- 
ing Samuel from the dead in answer to Saul's demand. Cf. I 
Samuel, xxviii, 8-14. 
13 



122 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

infinite straining, was as much as I could manage, from 
the situation which they occupied upon an upper shelf. 
I have not met with the work from that time to this, but 
I remember it consisted of Old Testament stories, or- 
5 derly set down, with the objection appended to each 
story, and the solution of the objection regularly tacked 
to that. The objection was a summary of whatever dif- 
ficulties had been opposed to the credibility of the his- 
tory, by the shrewdness of ancient or modern infidelity, 

10 drawn up with an almost complimentary excess of can- 
dour. The solution was brief, modest, and satisfactory. 
The bane and antidote were both before you. To doubts 
so put, and so quashed, there seemed to be an end for 
ever. The dragon lay dead, for the foot of the veriest 

15 babe to trample on. But — like as was rather feared than 
realized from that slain monster in Spenser — from the 
womb of those crushed errors young dragonets would 
creep, exceeding the prowess of so tender a Saint George 
as myself to vanquish. The habit of expecting objec- 

20 tions to every passage, set me upon starting more ob- 
jections, for the glory of finding a solution of my own 
for them. I became staggered and perplexed, a sceptic 
in long-coats. The pretty Bible stories which I had 
read, or heard read in church, lost their purity and sin- 

25 cerity of impression, and were turned into so many his- 
toric or chronologic theses to be defended against what- 
ever impugners. I was not to disbelieve them, but — 
the next thing to that — I was to be quite sure that some 
one or other would or had disbelieved them. Next to 

30 making a child an infidel, is the letting him know that 
there are infidels at all. Credulity is the man's weak- 

25-26. historic or chronologic theses: facts or dates for dis- 
cussion. 
27. impugners: those who assail with arguments. 



WITCHES AND OTHER NIGHT-FEAES 123 

ness, but the child's strength. 0, how ugly sound scrip- 
tural doubts from the mouth of a babe and a suckling ! 
— I should have lost myself in these mazes, and have 
pined away, I think, with such unfit sustenance as these 
husks afforded, but for a fortunate piece of ill-fortune, 5 
which about this time befell me. Turning over the pic- 
ture of the ark with too much haste, I unhappily made 
a breach in its ingenious fabric — driving my inconsider- 
ate fingers right through the two larger quadrupeds — 
the elephant and the camel — that stare (as well they 10 
might) out of the two last windows next the steerage in 
that unique piece of naval architecture. Stackhouse 
was henceforth locked up, and became an interdicted 
treasure. With the book, the objections and solutions 
gradually cleared out of my head, and have seldom re- 15 
turned since in any force to trouble me. — But there was 
one impression which I had imbibed from Stackhouse, 
which no lock or bar could shut out, and which was des- 
tined to try my childish nerves rather more seriously. — 
That detestable picture ! 20 

I was dreadfully alive to nervous terrors. The night- 
time solitude, and the dark, were my hell. The suffei 
ings I endured in this nature would justify the expres 
sion. I never laid my head on my pillow, I suppose 
from the fourth to the seventh or eighth year of my life 25 
— so far as memory serves in things so long ago — with- 
out an assurance, which realized its own prophecy, of 
seeing some frightful spectre. Be old Stackhouse then 
acquitted in part, if I say, that to his picture of the 
Witch raising up Samuel — (0 that old man covered 30 
with a mantle ! ) I owe — not my midnight terrors, the 
hell of my infancy — but the shape and manner of their 
visitation. It was he who dressed up for me a hag that 
nightly sate upon my pillow — a sure bed-fellow, when 



124 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

my aunt or my maid was far from me. All day long, 
while the book was permitted me, I dreamed waking 
over his delineation, and at night (if I may use so bold 
an expression) awoke into sleep, and found the vision 
5 true. I durst not, even in the daylight, once enter the 
chamber where I slept, without my face turned to the 
window, aversely from the bed where my witch-ridden 
pillow was. — Parents do not know what they do when 
they leave tender babes alone to go to sleep in the dark. 

10 The feeling about for a friendly arm — the hoping for a 
familiar voice — when they wake screaming — and find 
none to soothe them — what a terrible shaking it is to 
their poor nerves ! The keeping them up till midnight, 
through candle-light and the unwholesome hours, as 

15 they are called, — would, I am satisfied, in a medical 
point of view, prove the better caution. — That detestable 
picture, as I have said, gave the fashion to my dreams — 
if dreams they were — for the scene of them was invari- 
ably the room in which I lay. Had I never met with the 

20 picture, the fears would have come self -pictured in some 
shape or other — 

Headless bear, black man, or ape, — 

but, as it was, my imaginations took that form. — It is 

not book, or picture, or the stories of foolish servants, 

25 which create these terrors in children. They can at most 

but give them a direction. Dear little T. H., who of all 



8-13. In this passage Lamb is doubtless living over again his 
childhood experiences, and the experiences of many who came 
under his observation, at Christ's Hospital. Many of the boys 
there were of tender age. Lamb was entered when he was seven 
years old. 

22. From " The Author's Abstract of Melancholy/' prefixed to 
Burton's " Anatomy of Melancholy." 

26. T. H.: Thornton Hunt, Leigh Hunt's eldest boy. 



WITCHES AND OTHER NIGHT-FEARS 125 

children has been brought up with the most scrupulous 
exclusion of every taint of superstition — who was never 
allowed to hear of goblin or apparition, or scarcely to 
be told of bad men, or to read or hear of any distressing 
story — finds all this world of fear, from which he has 5 
been so rigidly excluded ab extra, in his own " thick- 
coming fancies; " and from his little midnight pillow, 
this nurse-child of optimism will start at shapes, unbor- 
rowed of tradition, in sweats to which the reveries of the 
cell-damned murderer are tranquillity. 10 

Gorgons, and Hydras, and Chimseras dire — stories of 
Celaeno and the Harpies — may reproduce themselves in 
the brain of superstition — but they were there before. 
They are transcripts, types — the archetypes are in us, 
and eternal. How else should the recital of that, which 15 
we know in a waking sense to be false, come to affect us 
at all? — or 

Names, whose sense we see not, 



Fray us with things that be not? 

Is it that we naturally conceive terror from such ob- 20 
jects, considered in their capacity of being able to in- 
flict upon us bodily injury? — 0, least of all! These 
terrors are of older standing. They date beyond body 

— or, without the body, they would have been the 
same. All the cruel, tormenting, defined devils in Dante 25 

— tearing, mangling, choking, stifling, scorching de- 
mons — are they one half so fearful to the spirit of a 



6. ab extra: from without. 

6-7. " thick-coming fancies." Cf . " Macbeth," V, iii, 38. 

8. nurse-child of optimism: fed on hopeful and happy thoughts. 

14. archetypes: primitive models which are imitated. 

18-19. Cf. Spenser's " Epithalamium," line 343. 



126 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

man, as the simple idea of a spirit unembodied follow- 
ing him — 

Like one that on a lonesome road 
Doth walk in fear and dread, 
5 And having once turn'd round, walks on. 

And turns no more his head; 
Because he knows a frightful fiend 
Doth close behind him tread. ^ 

That the kind of fear here treated of is purely spiritual 

10 — that it is strong in proportion as it is objectless upon 
earth — that it predominates in the period of sinless in- 
fancy — are difficulties, the solution of which might 
afford some probable insight into our ante-mundane con- 
dition, and a peep at least into the shadow-land of pre- 

15 existence. 

My night fancies have long ceased to be afflictive. I 
confess an occasional nightmare; but I do not, as in 
early youth, keep a stud of them. Fiendish faces, with 
the extinguished taper, will come and look at me ; but I 

20 know them for mockeries, even while I cannot elude 
their presence, and I fight and grapple with them. For 
the credit of my imagination, I am almost ashamed to 
say how tame and prosaic my dreams are grown. They 
are never romantic, seldom even rural. They are of 

25 architecture and of buildings — cities abroad, which I 
have never seen, and hardly have hope to see. I have 
traversed, for the seeming length of a natural day, 
Rome, Amsterdam, Paris, Lisbon — their churches, pal- 
aces, squares, market-places, shops, suburbs, ruins, with 

1 Mr. Coleridge's Ancient Mariner. 



10-11. objectless upon earth: having no earthly form or sub- 
stance. 

13. ante-mundane: before one's birth. 



WITCHES AND OTHER NIGHT-FEARS 127 

an inexpressible sense of delight — a map-like distinct- 
ness of trace — and a daylight vividness of vision, that 
was all but being awake. — I have formerly travelled 
among Westmoreland fells — my highest Alps, — but 
they are objects too mighty for the grasp of my dream- 5 
ing recognition ; and I have again and again awoke with 
ineffectual struggles of the inner eye, to make out a 
shape in any way whatever, of Helvellyn. Methought 
I was in that country, but the mountains were gone. 
The poverty of my dreams mortifies me. There is Cole- 10 
ridge, at his will can conjure up icy domes, and pleas- 
ure-houses for Kubla Khan, and Abyssinian maids, and 
songs of Abara, and caverns, 

Where Alph, the sacred river, runs, 

to solace his night solitudes — when I cannot muster a 15 
fiddle. Barry Cornwall has his tritons and his nereids 
gamboling before him in nocturnal visions, and pro- 
claiming sons born to Neptune — when my stretch of 
imaginative activity can hardly, in the night season, 
raise up the ghost of a fish-wife. To set my failures 20 
in somewhat a mortifying light — it was after reading 
the noble Dream of this poet, that my fancy ran strong 
upon these marine spectra; and the poor plastic power, 
such as it is, within me set to work, to humour my folly 
in a sort of dream that very night. Methought I was 25 
upon the ocean billows at some sea nuptials, riding and 
mounted high, with the customary train sounding their 



4. Westmoreland fells: the barren hills of the "Lake District," 
in England. 

8. Helvellyn: the second highest peak in the "Lake District" 
(3,118 feet above sea level). 

23. marine spectra: sea apparitions. 

27. customary train sounding their conchs: Neptune's usual 
attendants soundinor their horns of sea- shell. 



128 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

conchs before me (I myself, you may be sure, the lead- 
ing god), and jollily we went careering over the main, 
till just where Ino Leucothea should have greeted me (I 
think it was Ino) with a white embrace, the billows 
5 gradually subsiding, fell from a sea-roughness to a sea- 
calm, and thence to a river-motion, and that river (as 
happens in the familiarization of dreams) was no other 
than the gentle Thames, which landed me, in the 
wafture of a placid wave or two, alone, safe and in- 

10 glorious, somewhere at the foot of Lambeth Palace. 

The degree of the souFs creativeness in sleep might 
furnish no whimsical criterion of the quantum of poet- 
ical faculty resident in the same soul waking. An old 
gentleman, a friend of mine, and a humourist, used to 

15 carry this notion so far, that when he saw any stripling 
of his acquaintance ambitious of becoming a poet, his 
first question would be, — ^^ Young man, what sort of 
dreams have you? " I have so much faith in my old 
friend's theory, that when I feel that idle vein return- 

20 ing upon me, I presently subside into my proper ele- 
ment of prose, remembering those eluding nereids, and 
that inauspicious inland landing. 



10. Lambeth Palace: the residence of the Archbishop of Canter- 
bury, on the Surrey side of the Thames. 

12. no whimsical criterion of the quantum: a serious estimate 
of the amount. 



XII. GRACE BEFORE MEAT 

The custom of saying grace at meals had, probably, 
its origin in the early times of the world, and the hunter- 
state of man, when dinners were precarious things, and 
a full meal was something more than a common blessing ; 
when a bellyful was a windfall, and looked like a special 5 
providence. In the shouts and triumphal songs with 
which, after a season of sharp abstinence, a lucky booty 
of deer's or goat's flesh would naturally be ushered 
home, existed, perhaps, the germ of the modern grace. 
It is not otherwise easy to be understood, why the bless- 10 
ing of food — the act of eating — should have had a par- 
ticular expression of thanksgiving annexed to it, distinct 
from that implied and silent gratitude with which we 
are expected to enter upon the enjoyment of the many 
other various gifts and good things of existence. 15 

I own that I am disposed to say grace upon twenty 
other occasions in the course of the day besides my din- 
ner. I want a form for setting out upon a pleasant 
walk, for a moonlight ramble, for a friendly meeting, 
or a solved problem. Why have we none for books, 20 
those spiritual repasts — a grace before Milton — a grace 
before Shakespeare — a devotional exercise proper to be 
said before reading the Faerie Queene? — but, the re- 
ceived ritual having prescribed these forms to the soli- 
tary ceremony of manducation, I shall confine my ob- 25 



25. manducation: eating. 

129 



130 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

servations to the experience which I have had of the 
grace, properly so called; commending my new scheme 
for extension to a niche in the grand philosophical, poet- 
ical, and perchance in part heretical, liturgy, now com- 
5 piling by my friend Homo Humanus, for the use of a 
certain snug congregation of Utopian Rabelaesian Chris- 
tians, no matter where assembled. 

The form then of the benediction before eating has its 
beauty at a poor man's table, or at the simple and un- 

10 provocative repasts of children. It is here that the grace 
becomes exceedingly graceful. The indigent man, who 
hardly knows w^hether he shall have a meal the next 
day or not, sits down to his fare wdth a present sense 
of the blessing, which can be but feebly acted by the 

15 rich, into whose minds the conception of wanting a 
dinner could never, but by some extreme theory, have 
entered. The proper end of food — the animal suste- 
nance — is barely contemplated by them. The poor man's 
bread is his daily bread, literally his bread for the day. 

20 Their courses are perennial. 

Again, the plainest diet seems the fittest to be pre- 
ceded by the grace. That which is least stimulative to 
appetite, leaves the mind most free for foreign consid- 
erations. A man may feel thankful, heartily thankful, 

25 over a dish of i)lain mutton with turnips, and have leis- 
ure to reflect upon the ordinance and institution of eat- 
ing; when he shall confess a perturbation of mind, in- 



4. liturgy: a ritual; a prescribed form for public worship. 

5. Homo Humanus: mankind. No individual is referred to, as 
far as known. 

9-10. unprovocetive repasts: meals so simple as not to provoke 
the desires of those who sit down to them. 

20. Their courses are perennial: the meals of the rich, with 
their many courses, go on from year to year. 



GEACE BEFORE MEAT 131 

consistent with the purposes of the grace, at the presence 
of venison or turtle. When I have sate (a rams hospes) 
at rich men's tables, with the savoury soup and messes 
steaming up the nostrils, and moistening the lips of the 
guests with desire and a distracted choice, I have felt 5 
the introduction of that ceremony to be unseasonable. 
With the ravenous orgasm upon you, it seems imper- 
tinent to interpose a religious sentiment. It is a con- 
fusion of purpose to mutter out praises from a mouth 
that waters. The heats of epicurism put out the gentle 10 
flame of devotion. The incense which rises round is 
pagan, and the belly-god intercepts it for his own. The 
very excess of the provision beyond the needs, takes 
away all sense of proportion between the end and means. 
The giver is veiled by his gifts. You are startled at the 15 
injustice of returning thanks — for what? — for having 
too much, while so many starve. It is to praise the Gods 
amiss. 

I have observed this awkwardness felt, scarce con- 
sciously perhaps, by the good man who says the grace. 20 
I have seen it in clergymen and others — a sort of shame 
— a sense of the co-presence of circumstances which un- 
hallow the blessing. After a devotional tone put on for 
a few seconds, how rapidly the speaker will fall into his 
common voice, helping himself or his neighbour, as if 25 
to get rid of some uneasy sensation of hypocrisy. Not 
that the good man was a hypocrite, or was not most 
conscientious in the discharge of the duty; but he felt 
in his inmost mind the incompatibility of the scene and 
the viands before him with the exercise of a calm and 30 
rational gratitude. 



2. rams hospes: infrequent guest. 

7. ravenous orgasm: excitement of appetite. 



132 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

I hear somebody exclaim, — Would you have Chris- 
tians sit down at table, like hogs to their troughs, with- 
out remembering the Giver? — no — I would have them 
sit down as Christians, remembering the Giver, and less 
5 like hogs. Or if their appetites must run riot, and they 
must pamper themselves with delicacies for which east 
and west are ransacked, I would have them postpone 
their benediction to a fitter season, when appetite is laid ; 
when the still small voice can be heard, and the reason 

10 of the grace returns — with temperate diet and restricted 
dishes. Gluttony and surfeiting are no proper occasions 
for thanksgiving. When Jeshurun waxed fat, we read 
that he kicked. Virgil knew the harpy-nature better, 
when he put into the mouth of Celaeno anything but a 

15 blessing. We may be gratefully sensible of the delicious- 
ness of some kinds of food beyond others, though that is 
a meaner and inferior gratitude: but the proper object 
of the grace is sustenance, not relishes; daily bread, 
not delicacies; the means of life, and not the means 

20 of pampering the carcass. With what frame or com- 
posure, I wonder, can a city chaplain pronounce his 
benediction at some great Hall feast, when he knows 
that his last concluding pious word — and that, in all 
probability, the sacred name which he preaches — is but 

25 the signal for so many impatient harpies to com- 
mence their foul orgies, with as little sense of true 
thankfulness (which is temperance) as those Virgilian 
fowl! It is well if the good man himself does not 
feel his devotions a little clouded, those foggy sensuous 



9. the still small voice. Cf. I Kings, xix, 12. 

12. Jeshurun. Cf. Deuteronomy, xxxii, 15. 

13. Virgil knew the harpy-nature better, etc. See note on 
page 270. 

20. frame: frame of mind. 



GEACE BEFOKE MEAT 133 

streams mingling with and polluting the pure altar 
sacrifice. 

The severest satire upon full tables and surfeits is the 
banquet which Satan, in the Paradise Regained, pro- 
vides for a temptation in the wilderness: 5 

A table richly spread in regal mode. 

With dishes piled, and meats of noblest sort 

And savour; beasts of chase, or fowl of game, 

In pastry built, or from the spit, or boil'd, 

Gris-amber-steam'd ; all fish from sea or shore, 10 

Freshet or purling brook, for which was drain'd 

Pontus, and Lucrine bay, and Afric coast. 

The tempter, I warrant you, thought these cates 
would go down without the recommendatory preface of 
a benediction. They are like to be short graces where 15 
the devil plays the host. — I am afraid the poet wants his 
usual decorum in this place. Was he thinking of the old 
Roman luxury, or of a gaudy day at Cambridge ? This 
was a temptation fitter for a Heliogabalus. The whole 
banquet is too civic and culinary, and the accompani- 20 
ments altogether a profanation of that deep, abstracted, 
holy scene. The mighty artillery of sauces, which the 
cook-fiend conjures up, is out of proportion to the sim- 
ple wants and plain hunger of the guest. He that dis- 
turbed him in his dreams, from his dreams might have 25 
been taught better. To the temperate fantasies of the 
famished Son of God, what sort of feasts presented 
themselves? — He dreamed indeed. 



4. Milton's " Paradise Regained," II, 337-347. 
10. Gris-amber, or ambergris: a fat from the sperm whale, 
formerly much used in cooking because of its aroma. 
13. cates: dainties. 
16. wants: lacks. 
18. gaudy day: holiday. 



134 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

As appetite is wont to dream, 



Of meats and drinks, nature's refreshment sweet. 
But what meats? 

Him thought, he by the brook of Cherith stood, 
5 And saw the ravens with their horny beaks 

Food to Elijah bringing even and morn; 

Though ravenous, taught to abstain from what 
they brought : 

He saw the prophet also how he fled 
10 Into the desert, and how there he slept 

Under a juniper; then how awaked 

He found his supper on the coals prepared. 

And by the angel was bid rise and eat. 

And ate the second time after repose, 
15 The strength whereof sufficed him forty days: 

Sometimes, that with Elijah he partook, 

Or as a guest with Daniel at his pulse. 

Nothing in Milton is finelier fancied than these temper- 
ate dreams of the divine Hungerer. To which of these 

20 two visionary banquets, think you, would the introduc- 
tion of what is called the grace have been most fitting 
and pertinent. 

Theoretically I am no enemy to graces; but practi- 
cally I own that (before meat especially) they seem to 

25 involve something awkward and unseasonable. Our ap- 
petites, of one or another kind, are excellent spurs to 
our reason, which might otherwise but feebly set about 
the great ends of preserving and continuing the species. 
They are fit blessings to be contemplated at a distance 



1-2. " Paradise Regained/' II, 264-265. 

4-17. " Paradise Regained," II, 266-279. For the Bible account, 
see I Kings, xvii, 2-6; I Kings, xix, 2-8. 
17. pulse: dried peas. Cf. Daniel, i, 11-16. 



GKACE BEFOEE MEAT 135 

with a becoming gratitude ; but the moment of appetite 
(the judicious reader will apprehend me) is, perhaps, 
the least fit season for that exercise. The Quakers who 
go about their business, of every description, with more 
calmness than we, have more title to the use of these 5 
benedictory prefaces. I have always admired their 
silent grace, and the more because I have observed their 
applications to the meat and drink following to be less 
passionate and sensual than ours. They are neither 
gluttons nor wine-bibbers as a people. They eat, as a 10 
horse bolts his chopped hay, with indifference, calmness, 
and cleanly circumstances. They neither grease nor 
slop themselves. When I see a citizen in his bib and 
tucker, I cannot imagine it a surplice. 

I am no Quaker at my food. I confess I am not in- 15 
different to the kinds of it. Those unctuous morsels of 
deer's flesh were not made to be received with dispas- 
sionate services. I hate a man who swallows it, affecting 
not to know what he is eating. I suspect his taste in 
higher matters. I shrink instinctively from one who 20 
professes to like minced veal. There is a physiognomical 

character in the tastes for food. C holds that a man 

cannot have a pure mind who refuses apple-dumplings. 
I am not certain but he is right. With the decay of my 
first innocence, I confess a less and less relish daily for 25 
those innocuous cates. The whole vegetable tribe have 
lost their gust with me. Only I stick to asparagus. 



14. surplice: a priest's robe. 

21. physiognomical: appearance of the face; or, as here, the 
ability to read character by the appearance of the face. In like 
manner Lamb reads character by taste in the matter of food. 

22. C : Coleridge. 

26. innocuous cates: harmless dainties. 

27. gust: rehsh. 



136 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

which still seems to inspire gentle thoughts. I am im- 
patient and querulous under culinary disappointments, 
as to come home at the dinner hour, for instance, ex- 
pecting some savoury mess, and to find one quite taste- 
5 less and sapidless. Butter ill melted — that commonest 
of kitchen failures — puts me beside my tenour. — The 
author of the Rambler used to make inarticulate animal 
noises over a favourite food. Was this the music quite 
proper to be preceded by the grace ? or would the pious 

10 man have done better to postpone his devotions to a 
season when the blessing might be contemplated with 
less perturbation? I quarrel with no man's tastes, nor 
would set my thin face against those excellent things, 
in their way, jollity and feasting. But as these exer- 

15 cises, however laudable, have little in them of grace or 
gracefulness, a man should be sure, before he ventures 
so to grace them, that while he is pretending his devo- 
tions otherwhere, he is not secretly kissing his hand to 
some great fish — his Dagon — with a special consecration 

20 of no ark but the fat tureen before him. Graces are the 
sweet preluding strains to the banquets of angels and 
children; to the roots and severer repasts of the Char- 
treuse; to the slender, but not slenderly acknowledged, 
refection of the poor and humble man: but at the 

25 heaped-up boards of the pampered and the luxurious 
they become of dissonant mood, less timed and tuned to 
the occasion, methinks, than the noise of those better 
befitting organs would be, which children hear tales of, 
at Hog's Norton. We sit too long at our meals, or are 



5. sapidless: lacking savor. 

6. puts me beside my tenour: makes me impatient. 

19. Dagon: the national god of the Philistines, represented as 
half man, half fish. See I Samuel, v, 1-5. 

22-23. Chartreuse: the Carthusian monks. See note on page 259. 



GEACE BEFOEE MEAT 137 

too curious in the study of them, or too disordered in 
our application to them, or engross too great a portion 
of those good things (which should be common) to our 
share, to be able with any grace to say grace. To be 
thankful for what we grasp exceeding our proportion is 5 
to add hypocrisy to injustice. A lurking sense of this 
truth is what makes the performance of this duty so 
cold and spiritless a service at most tables. In houses 
where the grace is as indispensable as the napkin, who 
has not seen that never settled question arise, as to who 10 
shall say it; while the good man of the house and the 
visitor clergyman, or some other guest belike of next 
authority from years or gravity, shall be bandying 
about the office between them as a matter of com- 
pliment, each of them not unwilling to shift the 15 
awkward burthen of an equivocal duty from his own 
shoulders ? 

I once drank tea in company with two Methodist 
divines of different persuasions, whom it was my fortune 
to introduce to each other for the first time that evening. 20 
Before the first cup was handed round, one of these rev- 
erend gentlemen put it to the other, with all due solem- 
nity, whether he chose to say anything. It seems it is 
the custom with some sectaries to put up a short prayer 
before this meal also. His reverend brother did not at 25 
first quite apprehend him, but upon an explanation, 
with little less importance he made answer, that it was 
not a custom known in his church: in which courteous 
evasion the other acquiescing for good manners' sake, 
or in compliance with a weak brother, the supplemen- 30 
tary or tea-grace was waived altogether. With what 

1. curious: ingenious; elaborate. 

24. sectaries: dissenters. 

30. weak brother. Cf. I Corinthians, viii, 11. 

13 



138 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

spirit might not Lucian have painted two priests, of his 
religion, playing into each other's hands the compli- 
ment of performing or omitting a sacrifice, — the hungry 
God meantime, doubtful of his incense, with expect- 
5 ant nostrils hovering over the two flamens, and (as 
between two stools) going away in the end without his 
supper. 

A short form upon these occasions is felt to want rev- 
erence; a long one, I am afraid, cannot escape the charge 

10 of impertinence. I do not quite approve of the epigram- 
matic conciseness with which that equivocal wag (but 
my pleasant school-fellow) C. V. L., when importuned 
for a grace, used to inquire, first slyly leering down the 
table, " Is there no clergyman here? '' — significantly 

15 adding, ^^ Thank G — .'' Nor do I think our old form 
at school quite pertinent, where we were used to preface 
our bald bread and cheese suppers with a preamble, con- 
necting with that humble blessing a recognition of bene- 
fits the most awful and overwhelming to the imagination 

20 which religion has to offer. Non tunc illis erat locus. I 
remember we were put to it to reconcile the phrase 
'' good creatures,'^ upon which the blessing rested, with 
the fare set before us, wilfully understanding that ex- 
pression in a low and animal sense, — till some one re- 

25 called a legend, which told how in the golden days of 
Christ's, the young Hospitallers were wont to have smok- 
ing joints of roast meat upon their nightly boards, till 



5. flamens: priests. 

5-6. as between two stools. The old proverb " to fall between 
two stools " means to fail of advantage on either hand when 
hesitating between two opportunities. 

12. C. V. L.: Charles Valentine Le Grice. See note on page 
251. 

20. Non tunc illis erat locus: there was no place for them. 



GEACE BEFORE MEAT 139 



# 



some pious benefactor, commiserating the decencies, 
rather than the palates, of the children, commuted our 
flesh for garments, and gave us — horresco ref evens — 
trousers instead of mutton. 



1-2. commiserating the decencies, rather than the palates: taking 
pity on their lack of clothing rather than their lack of good food. 

3. horresco referens: I shudder at the mention of it. 

4. trousers instead of mutton. Leigh Hunt tells the story in 
his account of Christ's Hospital. 



XIII. DREAM-CHILDREN: A REVERIE 

Children love to listen to stories about their elders, 
when they were children; to stretch their imagination 
to the conception of a traditionary great-uncle, or gran- 
dame, whom they never saw. It was in this spirit that 

5 my little ones crept about me the other evening to hear 
about their great-grandmother Field, who lived in a 
great house in Norfolk (a hundred times bigger than 
that in which they and papa lived) which had been the. 
scene — so at least it was generally believed in that part 

10 of the country — of the tragic incidents which they had 
lately become familiar with from the ballad of the Chil- 
dren in the Wood. Certain it is that the whole story of 
the children and their cruel uncle was to be seen fairly 
carved out in wood upon the chimney-piece of the great 

15 hall, the whole story down to the Robin Redbreasts, till 
a foolish rich person pulled it down to set up a marble 
one of modern invention in its stead, with no story upon 
it. Here Alice put out one of her dear mother's looks, 
too tender to be called upbraiding. Then I went on to 

20 say, how^ religious and how good their great-grand- 
mother Field was, how beloved and respected by every- 
body, though she was not indeed the mistress of this 
great house, but had only the charge of it (and yet in 



7. Norfolk: a fiction, intended to mislead. The house was situ- 
ated in Blakesware, in Hertfordshire, as described in the essay, 

'^ Blakesmoor in H shire." See page 223. 

140 



DEEAM-CHILDREN: A REVERIE 141 

some respects she might be said to be the mistress of it 
too) committed to her by the owner, who preferred 
living in a newer and more fashionably mansion which 
he had purchased somewhere in the adjoining connty; 
but still she lived in it in a manner as if it had been her 5 
own, and kept up the dignity of the great house in a 
sort while she lived, which afterwards came to decay, 
and was nearly pulled down, and all its old ornaments 
stripped and carried away to the owner ^s other house, 
where they w^ere set up, and looked as awkward as if 10 
some one were to carry away the old tombs they had 
seen lately at the Abbey, and stick them up in Lady C.'s 
tawdry gilt drawing-room. Here John smiled, as much 
as to say, ^' that would be foolish indeed." And then 
I told how, when she came to die, her funeral was at- 15 
tended by a concourse of all the poor, and some of the 
gentry too, of the neighbourhood for many miles round, 
to show their respect for her memory, because she had 
been such a good and religious woman; so good indeed 
that she knew all the Psaltery by heart, ay, and a great 20 
part of the Testament besides. Here little Alice spread 
her hands. Then I told what a tall, upright, graceful 
person their great-grandmother Field once was; and 
how in her youth she was esteemed the best dancer — 
here Alice's little right foot played an involuntary 25 
movement, till, upon my looking grave, it desisted — ^the 
best dancer, I was saying, in the county, till a cruel dis- 
ease, called cancer, came, and bowed her down with 
pain ; but it could never bend her good spirits, or make 
them stoop, but they w^ere still upright, because she was 30 
so good and religious. Then I told how she used to sleep 
by herself in a lone chamber of the great lone house ; and 



12. the Abbey: Westminster. 



142 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

how she believed that an apparition of two infants was 
to be seen at midnight gliding up and down the great 
staircase near where she slept, but she said '^ those in- 
nocents would do her no harm; " and how frightened I 
5 used to be, though in those days I had my maid to sleep 
with me, because I was never half so good or religious 
as she — and yet I never saw the infants. Here John 
expanded all his eyebrows and tried to look courageous. 
Then I told how good she was to all her grandchildren, 

10 having us to the great house in the holidays, where I in 
particular used to spend many hours by myself, in gaz- 
ing upon the old busts of the twelve Caesars, that had 
been Emperors of Rome, till the old marble heads would 
seem to live again, or I to be turned into marble with 

15 them; how I never could be tired with roaming about 
that huge mansion, with its vast empty rooms, with their 
worn-out hangings, fluttering tapestry, and carved 
oaken panels, with the gilding almost rubbed out — some- 
times in the spacious old-fashioned gardens, which I had 

20 almost to myself, unless when now and then a solitary 
gardening man would cross me — and how the nectarines 
and peaches hung upon the walls, without my ever of- 
fering to pluck them, because they were forbidden fruit, 
unless now and then, — and because I had more pleasure 

25 in strolling about among the old melancholy-looking yew- 
trees, or the firs, and picking up the red berries, and the 
fir apples, which were good for nothing but to look at — 
or in lying about upon the fresh grass, with all the fine 
garden smells around me — or basking in the orangery, 

30 till I could almost fancy myself ripening too along with 
the oranges and the limes in that grateful warmth — or 
in watching the dace that darted to and fro in the fish- 



27. fir apples: the cones of the fir tree. 



DREAM-CHILDKEN: A REVERIE 143 

pond, at the bottom of the garden, with here and there 
a great sulky pike hanging midway down the w^ater in 
silent state, as if it mocked at their impertinent frisk- 
ings, — I had more pleasure in these busy-idle diversions 
than in all the sweet flavours of peaches, nectarines, 5 
oranges, and such like common baits of children. Here 
John slyly deposited back upon the plate a bunch of 
grapes, w^hich, not unobserved by Alice, he had medi- 
tated dividing with her, and both seemed willing to 
relinquish them for the present as irrelevant. Then in 10 
somewhat a more heightened tone, I told how, though 
their great-grandmother Field loved all her grandchil- 
dren, yet in an especial manner she might be said to love 

their uncle, John L , because he was so handsome 

and spirited a youth, and a king to the rest of us; and, 15 
instead of moping about in solitary corners, like some 
of us, he would mourlt the most mettlesome horse he 
could get, when but an imp no bigger than themselves, 
and make it carry him half over the county in a morn- 
ing, and join the hunters when there were any out — 20 
and yet he loved the old great house and gardens too, 
but had too much spirit to be always pent up within 
their boundaries — and how their uncle grew up to man's 
estate as brave as he was handsome, to the admiration 
of everybody, but of their great-grandmother Field most 25 
especially; and how he used to carry me upon his back 
when I was a lame-footed boy — for he was a good bit 
older than me — many a mile when I could not walk for 
pain ; — and how in after-life he became lame-footed too, 
and I did not always (I fear) make allowances enough 30 
for him when he was impatient, and in pain, nor remem- 



6. baits: temptations. 

14. John L : John Lamb. 



144 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

ber sufficiently how considerate he had been to me when 
I was lame-footed; and how when he died, though he 
had not been dead an hour, it seemed as if he had died 
a great while ago, such a distance there is betwixt life 
5 and death ; and how I bore his death as I thought pretty 
well at first, but afterwards it haunted and haunted me ; 
and though I did not cry or take it to heart as some do, 
and as I think he would have done if I had died, yet I 
missed him all day long, and knew not till then how 

10 much I had loved him. I missed his kindness, and I 
missed his crossness, and wished him to be alive again, 
to be quarrelling with him (for we quarrelled some- 
times), rather than not have him again, and was as 
uneasy without him, as he their poor uncle must have 

15 been when the doctor took off his limb. Here the chil- 
dren fell a-crying, and asked if their little mourning 
which they had on was not for' uncle John, and they 
looked up, and prayed me not to go on about their uncle, 
but to tell them some stories about their pretty dead 

20 mother. Then I told how for seven long years, in hope 
sometimes, sometimes in despair, yet persisting ever, I 

courted the fair Alice W n ; and, as much as children 

could understand, I explained to them what coyness, 
and difficulty, and denial meant in maidens — when sud- 

25 denly, turning to Alice, the soul of the first Alice looked 
out at her eyes with such a reality of re-presentment, 
that I became in doubt which of them stood there before 
me, or whose that bright hair was; and while I stood 
gazing, both the children gradually grew fainter to my 

30 view, receding, and still receding till nothing at last but 
two mournful features were seen in the uttermost dis- 
tance, which, without speech, strangely impressed upon 



22. Alice W n. See note on page 256, 



DEEAM-CHILDREN : A EEVERIE 145 

me the effects of speech : ' ' We are not of Alice, nor of 
thee, nor are we children at all. The children of Alice 
call Bartrum father. We are nothing; less than noth- 
ing, and dreams. We are only what might have been, 
and must wait upon the tedious shores of Lethe millions 5 

of ages before we have existence, and a name " and 

immediately awaking, I found myself quietly seated in 
my bachelor arm-chair, where I had fallen asleep, with 
the faithful Bridget unchanged by my side — but John 
L. (or James Elia) was gone forever. 10 



3. Bartrum. See note on page 256. 



XIV. DISTANT CORRESPONDENTS 

In a letter to B. F., Esq., at Sydney, New South Wales 

My dear F. — When I think how welcome the sight of 
a letter from the world where you were born must be to 
you in that strange one to which you have been trans- 
planted, I feel some compunctious visitings at my long 
5 silence. But, indeed, it is no easy effort to set about a 
correspondence at our distance. The weary world of 
waters between us oppresses the imagination. It is dif- 
ficult to conceive how a scrawl of mine should ever 
stretch across it. It is a sort of presumption to expect 

10 that one's thoughts should live so far. It is like writing 
for posterity; and reminds me of one of Mrs. Rowe's 
superscriptions, ' ' Alcander to Strephon, in the Shades. ' ' 
Cowley's Post- Angel is no more than would be expe- 
dient in such an intercourse. One drops a packet at 

15 Lombard-street, and in twenty-four hours a friend in 
Cumberland gets it as fresh as if it came in ice. It is 
only like whispering through a long trumpet. But sup- 
pose a tube let down from the moon, with yourself at 
one end, and the man at the other; it would be some 

20 balk to the spirit of conversation, if you knew that the 
dialogue exchanged with that interesting theosophist 



4. compunctious visitings: stings of conscience. 
11. Elizabeth Rowe (1674-1737) wrote "Friendship in Death, 
in Twenty Letters from the Dead to the Living." 
146 



DISTANT COREESPONDENTS 147 

would take two or three revolutions of a higher lu- 
minary in its passage. Yet for aught I know, you may 
be some parasangs nigher that primitive idea — Plato's 
man — than we in England here have the honour to 
reckon ourselves. 5 

Epistolary matter usually compriseth three topics; 
news, sentiment, and puns. In the latter, I include all 
non-serious subjects; or subjects serious in themselves, 
but treated after my fashion, non-seriously. — And first, 
for news. In them the most desirable circumstance, I 10 
suppose, is that they shall be true. But what security 
can I have that what I now send you for truth shall not 
before you get it unaccountably turn into a lie? For 
instance, our mutual friend P. is at this present writing 
— my Now — in good health, and enjoys a fair share of 15 
worldly reputation. You are glad to hear it. This is 
natural and friendly. But at this present reading — 
your Now — he may possibly be in the Bench, or going 
to be hanged, which in reason ought to abate something 
of your transport {i.e., at hearing he was well, &c.), or 20 
at least considerably to modify it. I am going to the 
play this evening, to have a laugh with Munden. You 
have no theatre, I think you told me, in your land of 

d d realities. You naturally lick your lips, and envy 

me my felicity. Think but a moment, and you will cor- 25 
rect the hateful emotion. Why, it is Sunday morning 
with you, and 1823. This confusion of tenses, this grand 
solecism of two presents, is in a degree common to all 

1. two or three revolutions of a higher luminary: two or three 
years — revolutions of (about) the sun. 

3. parasangs. A parasang was a Persian road measure, not 
accurately measuring distance, but rather indicating time em- 
ployed in traversing a given distance. 

22. Munden. See essay, " On the Acting of Munden." 

28. solecism: incongruity. 



148 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

postage. But if I sent you word to Bath or the Devises, 
that I was expecting the aforesaid treat this evening, 
though at the moment you received the intelligence my 
full feast of fun would be over, yet there would be for 

5 a day or two after, as you would well know, a smack, a 
relish left upon my mental palate, which would give 
rational encouragement for you to foster a portion at 
least of the disagreeable passion, which it was in part 
my intention to produce. But ten months hence your 

10 envy or your sympathy would be as useless as a passion 
spent upon the dead. Not only does truth, in these long 
intervals, un-essence herself, but (what is harder) one 
cannot venture a crude fiction for the fear that it may 
ripen into a truth upon the voyage. What a wild im- 

15 probable banter I put upon you some three years since 

of Will Weatherall having married a servant-maid ! 

I remember gravely consulting you how we were to re- 
ceive her — for Will's wife was in no case to be rejected; 
and your no less serious replication in the matter ; how 

20 tenderly you advised an abstemious introduction of lit- 
erary topics before the lady, with a caution not to be 
too forward in bringing on the carpet matters more 
within the sphere of her intelligence; your deliberate 
judgment, or rather wise suspension of sentence, how 

25 far jacks, and spits, and mops could with propriety be 
introduced as subjects; whether the conscious avoiding 
of all such matters in discourse would not have a worse 
look than the taking of them casually in our way; in 
what manner we should carry ourselves to our maid 

30 Becky, Mrs. William Weatherall being by; whether we 
should show more delicacy, and a truer sense of respect 



12. un-essence: divest herself of her true nature. 

19. replication: reply. 

22. bringing on the carpet: calling up for discussion. 



DISTANT COEKESPONDENTS 149 

for Will's wife, by treating Becky with our customary 
chiding before her, or by an unusual deferential civility 
paid to Becky as to a person of great worth, but thrown 
by the caprice of fate into a humble station. There -were 
difficulties, I remember, on both sides, w^hich you did me 5 
the favour to state with the precision of a lawyer, united 
to the tenderness of a friend. I laughed in my sleeve 
at your solemn pleadings, when lo ! w^iile I was valuing 
myself upon this flam put upon you in New South 
Wales, the devil in England, jealous possibly of any lie- 10 
children not his ow^n, or working after my copy, has 
actually instigated our friend (not three days since) to 
the commission of a matrimony, which I had only con- 
jured up for your diversion. William Weatherall has 
married Mrs. CottereFs maid. But to take it in its 15 
truest sense, you will see, my dear P., that news from 
me must become history to you ; which I neither profess 
to write, nor indeed care much for reading. No i)erson, 
under a diviner, can with any prospect of veracity con- 
duct a correspondence at such an arm's length. Tw^o 20 
prophets, indeed, might thus interchange intelligence 
with effect; the epoch of the writer (Habakkuk) falling 
in with the true present time of the receiver (Daniel) ; 
but then we are no prophets. 

Then as to sentiment. It fares little better with that. 25 
This kind of dish, above all, requires to be served up 
hot; or sent off in water-plates, that your friend may 
have it almost as warm as yourself. If it have time to 
cool, it is the most tasteless of all cold meats. I have 
often smiled at a conceit of the late Lord C. It seems 30 
that travelling somewhere about Geneva, he came to 



19. under a diviner: of less prophetic power than a seer. 
27. water-plates: plates with a double bottom for holding hot 
water. 



150 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

some pretty green spot, or nook, where a willow, or 
something, hung so fantastically and invitingly over a 
stream — was it? — or a rock? — no matter — but the still- 
ness and the repose, after a weary journey 'tis likely, in 
5 a languid moment of his lordship's hot restless life, so 
took his fancy, that he could imagine no place so proper, 
in the event of his death, to lay his bones in. This was 
all very natural and excusable as a sentiment, and shows 
his character in a very pleasing light. But when from 

10 a passing sentiment it came to be an act ; and when, by a 
positive testamentary disposal, his remains were actu- 
ally carried all that way from England ; who was there, 
some desperate sentimentalists excepted, that did not 
ask the question. Why could not his lordship have found 

15 a spot as solitary, a nook as romantic, a tree as green 
and pendent, with a stream as emblematic to his pur- 
pose, in Surrey, in Dorset, or in Devon? Conceive the 
sentiment boarded up, freighted, entered at the Custom 
House (startling the tide-waiters with the novelty), 

20 hoisted into a ship. Conceive it pawed about and han- 
dled between the rude jests of tarpaulin ruffians — a 
thing of its delicate texture — the salt bilge wetting it till 
it became as vapid as a damaged lustring. Suppose it 
in material danger (mariners have some superstition 

25 about sentiments) of being tossed over in a fresh gale to 
some propitiatory shark (spirit of Saint Gothard, save 
us from a quietus so foreign to the deviser's purpose!) 
but it has happily evaded a fishy consummation. Trace 



IL testamentary disposal: wish expressed in his will. 
19. tide-waiters: officers of the customs. 
21. tarpaulin ruffians: rough sailors. 
23. lustring: a glossy silk fabric. 

28. fishy consummation: ending by being swallowed by the 
propitiatory shark. 



DISTANT CORRESPONDENTS 151 

it then to its lucky landing — at Lyons shall we say? — I 
have not the map before me — jostled upon four men's 
shoulders — baiting at this town — stopping to refresh at 
t'other village — waiting a passport here, a license there; 
the sanction of the magistracy in this district, the con- 5 
currence of the ecclesiastics in that canton ; till at length 
it arrives at its destination, tired out and jaded, from a 
brisk sentiment, into a feature of silly pride or tawdry 
senseless affectation. How few sentiments, my dear F., 
I am afraid we can set down, in the sailor's phrase, as 10 
quite sea-worthy. 

Lastly, as to the agreeable levities, which, though con- 
temptible in bulk, are the twinkling corpuscula which 
should irradiate a right friendly epistle — your puns and 
small jests are, I apprehend, extremely circumscribed in 15 
their sphere of action. They are so far from a capacity 
of being packed up and sent beyond sea, they will scarce 
endure to be transported by hand from this room to the 
next. Their vigour is as the instant of their birth. 
Their nutriment for their brief existence is the Intel- 20 
lectual atmosphere of the bystanders : or this last, is the 
fine slime of Nilus — the melior lutus, — whose maternal 
recipiency is as necessary as the sol pater to their 
equivocal generation. A pun hath a hearty kind of 
present ear-kissing smack with it; you can no more 25 
transmit it in its pristine flavour, than you can send a 



13. corpuscula: atoms, or cells, like the free corpuscles in the 
blood. 

22. melior lutus: better mud. 

23. sol pater: father sun. The generation of a pun requires two 
— the one who utters it and the one who hears and appreciates; 
the one the sol pater, the other the melior lutus. Cf . " Antony 
and Cleopatra," II, vii, 29: "Your serpent of Egypt is bred now 
of your mud by the operation of your sun." 



152 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

kiss. — Have you not tried in some instances to palm off 
a yesterday's pun upon a gentleman, and has it an- 
swered? Not but it was new to his hearing, but it did 
not seem to come new from you. It did not hitch in. It 
5 was like picking up at a village ale-house a two days 
old newspaper. You have not seen it before, but you 
resent the stale thing as an affront. This sort of mer- 
chandize above all requires a quick return. A pun, and 
its recognitory laugh, must be co-instantaneous. The 

10 one is the brisk lightning, the other the fierce thunder. 
A moment's interval, and the link is snapped. A pun 
is reflected from a friend's face as from a mirror. "Who 
would consult his sweet visnomy, if the polished surface 
were two or three minutes (not to speak of twelve 

15 months, my dear F.) in giving back its copy? 

I cannot imagine to myself whereabout you are. 
When I try to fix it, Peter Wilkins's island comes across 
me. Sometimes you seem to be in the Hades of Thieves, 
I see Diogenes prying among you with his perpetual 

20 fruitless lantern. What must you be w^illing by this 
time to give for the sight of an honest man ! You must 
almost have forgotten how ive look. And tell me, what 
your Sydneyites do? are they th^^v^ng all day long? 
Merciful heaven ! what property can stand against such 

25 a depredation! The kangaroos — your Aborigines — do 
they keep their primitive simplicity un-Europe-tainted, 
wdth those little short fore-puds, looking like a lesson 



13. sweet visnomy: pleasant countenance. 

17. Peter Wilkins^s island. See note on page 250. 

25. Aborigines: original inhabitants. 

27. fore-puds: fore-paws, looking like a lesson framed by na- 
ture to the pickpocket: an object lesson for teaching pocket- 
picking, on account of the proximity of their fore-paws to the 
pouches of loose skin in which the females carry their young. 
(Hallward and Hill.) 



DISTANT CORRESPONDENTS 153 

framed by nature to the pickpocket ! Marry, for diving 
into fobs they are rather lamely provided a priori; but 
if the hue and cry were once up, they would show as 
fair a pair of hind-shifters as the expertest loco-motor 
in the colony. — We hear the most improbable tales at 5 
this distance. Pray, is it true that the young Spartans 
among you are born with six fingers, which spoils their 
scanning? — It must look very odd; but use reconciles. 
For their scansion, it is less to be regretted, for if they 
take it into their heads to be poets, it is odds but they 10 
turn out, the greater part of them, vile plagiarists. — Is 
there much difference to see to between the son of a 
th**f, and the grandson? or where does the taint stop? 
Do you bleach in three or in four generations? — I have 
many questions to put, but ten Delphic voyages can be 15 
made in a shorter time than it will take to satisfy my 
scruples. — Do you grow your own hemp ? — What is your 
staple trade, exclusive of the national profession, I 
mean? Your lock-smiths, I take it, are some of your 
great capitalists. 20 

I am insensibly chatting to you as familiarly as 
when we used to exchange good-morrows out of our old 
contiguous windows, in pump-famed Hare-court in the 
Temple. Why did you ever leave that quiet corner? — 
Why did I? — with its complement of four poor elms, 25 
from whose smoke-dried barks, the theme of jesting 
ruralists, I picked my first lady-birds! My heart is as 
dry as that spring sometimes proves in a thirsty August, 



2. a priori: in front. 

11. plagiarists: authors who steal the ideas of others. 

14. bleach: literally, turn white; become respectable. 

17. hemp: rope for hanging. 

18. national profession: thieving. Since thieves are so numer- 
ous, the lock-smiths (19) must drive a thriving trade. 

14 



154 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

when I revert to the space that is between us ; a length 
of passage enough to render obsolete the phrases of our 
English letters before they can reach you. But while I 
talk, I think you hear me, — thoughts dallying with vain 
5 surmise — 

Ay me! while thee the seas and sounding shores 
Hold far away. 

Come back, before I am grown into a very old man, 
so as you shall hardly know me. Come, before Bridget 

10 walks on crutches. Girls whom you left children have 
become sage matrons, while you are tarrying there. The 

blooming Miss W r (you remember Sally W r) 

called upon us yesterday, an aged crone. Folks, whom 
you knew, die off every year. Formerly, I thought that 

15 death was wearing out, — I stood ramparted about with 
so many healthy friends. The departure of J. W., two 
springs back, corrected my delusion. Since then the 
old divorcer has been busy. If you do not make haste 
to return, there will be little left to greet you, of me, 

20 or mine. 



6-7. Cf . Milton's " Lycidas," 153-155. 

12. Sally W r: Sally Winter (Lamb's Key). We find no 

record of who she was. 

16. J. W.: James, or "Jem" White. See pages 162-165 and 
note. 



XV. THE PRAISE OP CHIMNEY-SWEEPERS 

I LIKE to meet a sweep — understand me — not a grown 
sweeper — old chimney-sweepers are by no means attrac- 
tive — but one of those tender novices, blooming through 
their first nigritude, the maternal washings not quite 
effaced from the cheek — such as come forth with the 5 
dawn, or somewhat earlier, with their little professional 
notes sounding like the peep peep of a young sparrow; 
or liker to the matin lark should I pronounce them, in 
their aerial ascents not seldom anticipating the sun-rise ? 

I have a kindly yearning towards these dim specks — 10 
poor blots — innocent blacknesses — 

I reverence these young Africans of our own growth 
— these almost clergy imps, who sport their cloth with- 
out assumption; and from their little pulpits (the tops 
of chimneys), in the nipping air of a December morning, 15 
preach a lesson of patience to mankind. 

When a child, what a mysterious pleasure it was to 
witness their operation! to see a chit no bigger than 
one's self enter, one knew not by what process, into what 
seemed the fauces Averni — to pursue him in imagina- 20 
tion, as he went sounding on through so many dark 
stifling caverns, horrid shades! — to shudder with the 



13. clergy imps: wearing black, like the churchmen, cloth: pro- 
fessional dress. Members of the clergy are often called " men 
of the cloth." 

20. fauces Averni: the jaws of hell. Cf. Virgil's ".Eneid," 
VI, 201. 

155 



156 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

idea that ^ ' now, surely, he must be lost for ever ! ' ' — 
to revive at hearing his feeble shout of discovered day- 
light — and then (0 fulness of delight) running out of 
doors, to come just in time to see the sable phenomenon 
5 emerge in safety, the brandished weapon of his art vic- 
torious like some flag waved over a conquered citadel! 
I seem to remember having been told, that a bad sweep 
was once left in a stack with his brush, to indicate which 
way the wind blew. It was an awful spectacle cer- 

10 tainly ; not much unlike the old stage direction in Mac- 
beth, where the '' Apparition of child crow^ned with a 
tree in his hand rises." 

Reader, if thou meetest one of these small gentry in 
thy early rambles, it is good to give him a penny. It is 

15 better to give him twopence. If it be starving weather, 
and to the proper troubles of his hard occupation, a pair 
of kibed heels (no unusual accompaniment) be super- 
added, the demand on thy humanity will surely rise to a 
tester. 

20 There is a composition, the groundwork of which I 
have understood to be the sweet wood yclept sassafras. 
This wood boiled down to a kind of tea, and tempered 
with an infusion of milk and sugar, hath to some tastes 
a delicacy beyond the China luxury. I know not how 

25 thy palate may relish it; for myself, with every defer- 
ence to the judicious Mr. Read, who hath time out of 
mind kept open a shop (the only one he avers in Lon- 
don) for the vending of this ^^ wholesome and pleasant 



10-11. stage direction in Macbeth: IV, i, 86. 
17. kibed: chapped; sore. 

19. tester: a silver coin of the Tudor period, originally worth 
eighteen pence, later sixpence. 
21. yclept: called. 
24. China luxury: tea. 



THE PRAISE OF CHIMNEY-SWEEPERS 157 

beverage, on the south side of Fleet Street, as thou ap- 
proachest Bridge Street — the only Salopian house, — I 
have never yet adventured to dip my own particular lip 
in a basin of his commended ingredients — a cautious 
premonition to the olfactories constantly whispering to 5 
me, that my stomach must infallibly, with all due cour- 
tesy, decline it. Yet I have seen palates, otherwise not 
uninstructed in dietetical elegances, sup it up with 
avidity. 

I know not by what particular conformation of the 10 
organ it happens, but I have always found that this com- 
position is surprisingly gratifying to the palate of a 
young chimney-sweeper — whether the oily particles 
(sassafras is slightly oleaginous) do attenuate and 
soften the fuliginous concretions, which are sometimes 15 
found (in dissections) to adhere to the roof of the mouth 
in these unfledged practitioners; or whether Nature, 
sensible that she had mingled too much of bitter wood 
in the lot of these raw victims, caused to grow out of the 
earth her sassafras for a sweet lenitive — but so it is, 20 
that no possible taste or odour to the senses of a young 
chimney-sweeper can convey a delicate excitement com- 
parable to this mixture. Being penniless, they will yet 
hang their black heads over the ascending steam, to 
gratify one sense if possible, seemingly no less pleased 25 
than those domestic animals — cats — when they purr 
over a new-found sprig of valerian. There is some- 



5. premonition to the olfactories: a warning to the sense of 
smell. * 

8. dietetical elegances: the more delicate kinds of cookery. 

15. fuliginous concretions: sooty deposits. 

18. bitter wood: wormwood, a bitter aromatic herb. 

20. lenitive: a soother of pain. 

27. valerian: a pungent herb, whose peculiar odor is highly 
agreeable to cats. 



158 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

thing more in these sympathies than philosophy can 
inculcate. 

Now albeit Mr. Read boasteth, not without reason, 
that his is the only Salopian house; yet be it known to 
5 thee, reader — if thou art one who keepest what are 
called good hours, thou art happily ignorant of the fact 
— he hath a race of industrious imitators, who from 
stalls, and under open sky, dispense the same savoury 
mess to humbler customers, at that dead time of the 

10 daw^n, when (as extremes meet) the rake, reeling home 
from his midnight cups, and the hard-handed artisan 
leaving his bed to resume the premature labours of the 
day, jostle, not unfrequently to the manifest disconcert- 
ing of the former, for the honours of the pavement. It 

15 is the time when, in summer, between the expired and 
the not yet relumined kitchen-fires, the kennels of our 
fair metropolis give forth their least satisfactory odours. 
The rake, who wisheth to dissipate his o'er-night vapours 
in more grateful coffee, curses the ungenial fume, as he 

20 passeth; but the artisan stops to taste, and blesses the 
fragrant breakfast. 

This is Saloop — the precocious herb-woman's darling 
— the delight of the early gardener, who transports his 
smoking cabbages by break of day from Hammersmith 

25 to Covent Garden's famed piazzas — the delight, and, oh 
I fear, too often the envy, of the unpennied sweep. Him 
shouldst thou haply encounter, with his dim visage 
pendent over the grateful steam, regale him with a 



14. honours of the pavement: the privilege of "taking the 
wall " — walking as far from the dirty curb as possible, in order to 
avoid the odors of the kennels, gutters. 

19. ungenial fume: the distasteful aroma (of the saloop). 

25. Covent Garden's famed piazzas: the principal market of 
London. 



THE PKAISE OF CHIMNEY-SWEEPEES 159 

sumptuous basin (it will cost thee but three half -pennies) 
and a slice of delicate bread and butter (an added half- 
penny) so may thy culinary fires, eased of the over- 
charged secretions from thy worse-placed hospitalities, 
curl up a lighter volume to the welkin — so may the de- 5 
scending soot never taint thy costly well-ingredienced 
soups — nor the odious cry, quick-reaching from street 
to street, of the fired chimney, invite the rattling en- 
gines from ten adjacent parishes, to disturb for a casual 
scintillation thy peace and pocket ! 10 

I am by nature extremely susceptible of street af- 
fronts; the jeers and taunts of the populace; the low- 
bred triumph they display over the casual trip, or 
splashed stocking, of a gentleman. Yet can I endure 
the jocularity of a young sweep with something more 15 
than forgiveness. — In the last winter but one, pacing 
along Cheapside with my accustomed precipitation when 
I walk westward, a treacherous slide brought me upon 
my back in an instant. I scrambled up with pain and 
shame enough — yet outwardly trying to face it down, 20 
as if nothing had happened — when the roguish grin of 
one of these young wits encountered me. There he stood, 
pointing me out with his dusky finger to the mob, and 
to a poor woman (I suppose his mother) in particular, 
till the tears for the exquisiteness of the fun (so he 25 
thought it) worked themselves out at the corners of his 
poor red eyes, red from many a previous weeping, and 
soot-inflamed, yet twinkling through all with such a joy, 
snatched out of desolation, that Hogarth but Ho- 



3. so may thy culinary fires, etc.: so may your kitchen fires, 
relieved of the excess soot caused by dinners given your not so 
deserving friends, rise up more freely to the sky. 

9-10. for a casual scintillation: because of a chance spark. 

29. Hogarth. See note on page 246. 



160 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

garth has got him already (how could he miss him?) in 

the March to Finchley, grinning at the pie-man- 

there he stood, as he stands in the picture, irremovable, 
as if the jest was to last for ever — with such a maximum 

5 of glee, and minimum of mischief, in his mirth — for the 
grin of a genuine sweep hath absolutely no malice in it 
— that I could have been content, if the honour of a 
gentleman might endure it, to have remained his butt 
and his mockery till midnight. 

10 I am by theory obdurate to the seductiveness of what 
are called a fine set of teeth. Every pair of rosy lips 
(the ladies must pardon me) is a casket presumably 
holding such jewels; but, methinks, they should take 
leave to ^^ air " them as frugally as possible. The fine 

15 lady, or fine gentleman, who show me their teeth, show 
me bones. Yet must I confess, that from the mouth of 
a true sweep a display (even to ostentation) of those 
white and shining ossifications, strikes me as an agree- 
able anomaly in manners, and an allowable piece of 

20 foppery. It is, as when 

A sable cloud 
Turns forth her silver lining on the night. 

It is like some remnant of gentry not quite extinct; a 
badge of better days; a hint of nobility: — and, doubt- 
25 less, under the obscuring darkness and double night of 
their forlorn disguisement, oftentimes lurketh good 
blood, and gentle conditions, derived from lost ancestry, 
and a lapse! pedigree. The premature apprenticements 
of these tender victims give but too much encourage- 



13-14.r»"I beg but leave to air this jewel,"— " Cymbeline," II, 

iv, 96. :-^ 

19. anomaly in manners: breach of etiquette. ' % 
21-22. Cf. Milton's '' Comus," 222-224. 



THE PKAISE OF CHIMNEY-SWEEPERS 161 

ment, I fear, to clandestine, and almost infantile abduc- 
tions ; the seeds of civility . and true courtesy, so often 
discernible in these young grafts (not otherwise to be 
accounted for) plainly hint at some forced adoptions; 
many noble Rachels mourning for their children, even 5 
in our days, countenance the fact; the tales of fairy- 
spiriting may shadow a lamentable verity, and the re- 
covery of the young Montagu be but a solitary instance 
of good fortune, out of many irreparable and hopeless 
de-filiations. 10 

In one of the state-beds at Arundel Castle, a few years 
since — under a ducal canopy — (that seat of the How- 
ards is an object of curiosity to visitors, chiefly for its 
beds, in which the late duke was especially a connois- 
seur) — encircled with curtains of delicatest crimson, 15 
with starry coronets inwoven — folded between a pair 
of sheets whiter and softer than the lap where Venus 
lulled Ascanius — was discovered by chance, after all 
methods of search had failed, at noonday, fast asleep, a 
lost chimney-sweeper. The little creature, having some- 20 
how confounded his passage among the intricacies of 
those lordly chimneys, by some unknown aperture had 
alighted upon this magnificent chamber ; and, tired with 
his tedious explorations, was unable to resist the de- 
licious invitement to repose, which he there saw exhib- 25 
ited; so, creeping between the sheets very quietly, laid 
his black head upon the pillow, and slept like a young 
Howard. 

Such is the account given to the visitors at the Castle. 



3. grafts: like scions grafted on new trees, the sweeps are often 
stolen from good families to be planted amid harsh conditions. 
5. Rachels. Cf. Jeremiah, xxxi, 15. 
10. defiliations: loss of sons. 
21. confounded his passage: lost his way. 



162 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

— But I cannot help seeming to perceive a confirmation 
of what I have just hinted at in this story. A high in- 
stinct was at work in the case, or I am mistaken. Is it 
probable that a poor child of that description, with 
5 whatever weariness he might be visited, would have ven- 
tured, under such a penalty as he would be taught to 
expect, to uncover the sheets of a Duke's bed, and de- 
liberately to lay himself down between them, when the 
rug, or the carpet, presented an obvious couch, still far 

10 above his pretensions — is this probable, I would ask, if 
the great power of nature, which I contend for, had not 
been manifested within him, prompting to the adven- 
ture? Doubtless this young nobleman (for such my 
mind misgives me that he must be) was allured by some 

15 memory, not amounting to full consciousness, of his con- 
dition in infancy, when he was used to be lapped by his 
mother, or his nurse, in just such sheets as he there 
found, into w^hich he was now but creeping back as into 
his proper incimabula, and resting-place. By no other 

20 theory, than by this sentiment of a pre-existent state 
(as I may call it), can I explain a deed so venturous, 
and, indeed, upon any other system, so indecorous, in 
this tender, but unseasonable, sleeper. 

My pleasant friend Jem White was so impressed with 

25 a belief of metamorphoses like this frequently taking 
place, that in some sort to reverse the wrongs of fortune 
in these poor changelings, he instituted an annual feast 
of chimney-sweepers, at which it was his pleasure to 
officiate as host and waiter. It was a solemn supper held 

30 in Smithfield, upon the yearly return of the fair of St. 
Bartholomew. Cards were issued a week before to the 



19. incunabula: cradle. 

25. metamorphoses: transformations; changes. 



THE PRAISE OF CHIMNEY-SWEEPERS 163 

master-sweeps in and about the metropolis, confining 
the invitation to their younger fry. Now and then an 
elderly stripling would get in among us, and be good- 
naturedly winked at ; but our main body were infantry. 
One unfortunate wight, indeed, who, relying upon his 5 
dusky suit, had intruded himself into our party, but by 
tokens was providentially discovered in time to be no 
chimney-sweeper (all is not soot which looks so), was 
quoited out of the presence with universal indignation, 
as not having on the wedding garment; but in general 10 
the greatest harmony prevailed. The place chosen was 
a convenient spot among the pens, at the north side of . 
the fair, not so far distant as to be impervious to the 
agreeable hubbub of that vanity ; but remote enough not 
to be obvious to the interruption of every gaping spec- 15 
tator in it. The guests assembled about seven. In those 
little temporary parlours three tables were spread with 
napery, not so fine as substantial, and at every board a 
comely hostess presided with her pan of hissing sausages. 
The nostrils of the young rogues dilated at the savour. 20 
James White, as head waiter, had charge of the first 
table; and myself, with our trusty companion Bigod, 
ordinarily ministered to the other two. There was 



4. winked at: overlooked, infantry. Note Lamb's pun. 

8. all is not soot which looks so: a memory of the proverb, 
" All that glisters is not gold " — to quote Shakespeare's render- 
ing in " Merchant of Venice/' II, vii, 65. 

9. quoited out: excluded; thrown out like a quoit. 

10. as not having on the wedding garment. Cf. Matthew, 
xxii, 11. 

12. pens: of the Smithfield cattle market. 

14. that vanity: a memory of Vanity Fair in "Pilgrim's 
Progress." 

18. napery: linen. 

22. Bigod. See essay on " The Two Races of Men." 



164 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

clamoTiring and jostling, you may be sure, who should 
get at the first table — for Rochester in his maddest days 
could not have done the humours of the scene with more 
spirit than my friend. After some general expression 
5 of thanks for the honour the company had done him, 
his inaugural ceremony was to clasp the greasy waist 
of old dame Ursula (the fattest of the three), that stood 
frying and fretting, half -blessing, half-cursing *^ the 
gentleman,'' and imprint upon her chaste lips a tender 

10 salute, whereat the universal host would set up a shout 
that tore the concave, while hundreds of grinning teeth 
startled the night with their brightness. it was a 
pleasure to see the sable younkers lick in the unctuous 
meat, with Ms more unctuous sayings — how he would 

15 fit the tit-bits to the puny mouths, reserving the 
lengthier links for the seniors — how he would intercept 
a morsel even in the jaws of some young desperado, de- 
claring it '^ must to the pan again to be browned, for it 
was not fit for a gentleman's eating " — how he would 

20 recommend this slice of white bread, or that piece of 
kissing-crust, to a tender juvenile, advising them all to 
have a care of cracking their teeth, which were their 
best patrimony, — how genteelly he would deal about the 



7. old dame Ursula: the pig woman in Ben Jonson's "Bar- 
tholomew Fair." 

10. whereat the universal host, etc.: a free paraphrase of 
"Paradise Lost/' I, 541: 

" At which the universal host upsent i 

A shout that tore Hell's concave, and beyond 
Frighted the reign of Chaos and old Night." 

11. concave: the sky. 

14. his more unctuous sayings: Jem White's more (literally 
oily) witty sayings. 

21. kissing-crust: that part of the crust which touches another 
loaf in the baking — more tender than the top crust. 



THE PRAISE OF CHIMNEY-SWEEPERS 165 

small ale, as if it were wine, naming the brewer, and pro- 
testing, if it were not good, he should lose their custom; 
with a special recommendation to wipe the lip before 
drinking. Then we had our toasts — '' The King,'' — the 
'^ Cloth,'' — which, whether they understood or not, was 5 
equally diverting and flattering; — and for s crowning 
sentiment, which: never failed, '' May the Brush super- 
sede the Laurel ! ' ' All these, and fifty other fancies, 
which were rather felt than comprehended by his guests, 
would he utter, standing upon tables, and prefacing 10 
every sentiment with a '^ Gentlemen, give me leave to 
propose so and so," which was a prodigious comfort to 
those young orphans; every now and then stuffing into 
his mouth (for it did not do to be squeamish on these 
occasions) indiscriminate pieces of those reeking sau- 15 
sages, which pleased them mightily, and was the savouri- 
est part, you may believe, of the entertainment. 

Golden lads and lasses must. 

As chimney-sweepers, come to dust. — 

James White is extinct, and with him these suppers 20 
have long ceased. He carried away with him half the 
fun of the world when he died — of my world at least. 
His old clients look for him among the pens ; and, miss- 
ing him, reproach the altered feast of St. Bartholomew, 
and the glory of Smithfield departed for ever. 25 



7-8. "May the Brush supersede the Laurel! ": May the brush 
of the sweep surpass in honor the laurel wreath of war-victories. 
18-19. Cf . " Cymbeline/' IV, ii, 262-263. 



XVI. A DISSERTATION UPON ROAST PIG 

Mankind, says a Chinese manuscript, which my 
friend M. was obliging enough to read and explain to 
me, for the first seventy thousand ages ate their meat 
raw, clawing or biting it from the living animal, just as 
5 they do in Abyssinia to this day. This period is not ob- 
scurely hinted at by their great Confucius in the second 
chapter of his Mundane Mutations, where he designates 
a kind of golden age by the term Cho-fang, literally the 
Cooks' holiday. The manuscript goes on to say, that the 

10 art of roasting, or rather broiling (which I take to be 
the elder brother) was accidentally discovered in the 
manner following. The swine-herd, Ho-ti, having gone 
out into the woods one morning, as his manner was, to 
collect mast for his hogs, left his cottage in the care of 

15 his eldest son Bo-bo, a great lubberly boy, who being 
fond of playing with fire, as younkers of his age com- 
monly are, let some sparks escape into a bundle of straw, 
which kindling quickly, spread the conflagration over 
every part of their poor mansion, till it was reduced to 

20 ashes. Together with the cottage (a sorry antediluvian 
makeshift of a building, you may think it), what was of 
much more importance, a fine litter of new-farrowed 
pigs, no less than nine in number, perished. China pigs 
have been esteemed a luxury all over the East from the 



14. mast: acorns, beechnutSj etc. 
22. new-farrowed: just born. 
166 



A DISSERTATION UPON ROAST PIG 167 

remotest periods that we read of. Bo-bo was in the ut- 
most consternation, as you may think, not so much for 
the sake of the tenement, which his father and he could 
easily build up again with a few dry branches, and the 
labour of an hour or two, at any time, as for the loss of 5 
the pigs. While he was thinking what he should say 
to his father, and wringing his hands over the smoking 
remnants of one of those untimely sufferers, an odour 
assailed his nostrils, unlike any scent which he had be- 
fore experienced. What could it proceed from? — not 10 
from the burnt cottage — he had smelt that smell before . 
— indeed this was by no means the first accident of the 
kind which had occurred through the negligence of this 
unlucky young firebrand. Much less did it resemble 
that of any known herb, weed, or flower. A premoni- 15 
tory moistening at the same time overflowed his nether 
lip. He knew not what to think. He next stooped down 
to feel the pig, if there were any signs of life in it. He 
burnt his fingers, and to cool them he applied them in 
his booby fashion to his mouth. Some of the crumbs of 20 
the scorched skin had come away with his fingers, and 
for the first time in his. life (in the world's life indeed, 
for before him no man had known it) he tasted — crack- 
ling! Again he felt and fumbled at the pig. It did "not 
burn him so much now, still he licked his fingers from a 25 
sort of habit. The truth at length broke into his slow 
understanding, that it was the pig that smelt so, and the 
pig that tasted so delicious; and, surrendering himself 
up to the new-born pleasure, he fell to tearing up whole 
handfuls of the scorched skin with the flesh next it, and 30 
was cramming it down his throat in his beastly fashion, 

15-16. A premonitory moistening, etc.: as we should say, ''His 
mouth watered in anticipation." 
23-24. crackling: the outer skin done to a crisp brown. 



168 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

when his sire entered amid the smoking rafters, armed 
with retributory cudgel, and finding how affairs stood, 
began to rain blows upon the young rogue's shoulders, 
as thick as hail-stones, which Bo-bo heeded not any more 
5 than if they had been flies. The tickling pleasure, which 
he experienced in his lower regions, had rendered him 
quite callous to any inconveniences he might feel in 
those remote quarters. His father might lay on, but he 
could not beat him from his pig, till he had fairly made 

10 an end of it, when, becoming a little more sensible of his 
. situation, something like the following dialogue ensued. 

-— '' You graceless w^help, what have you got there de- 
vouring? Is it not enough that you have burnt me 
down three houses with your dog 's tricks, and be hanged 

15 to you, but you must be eating fire, and I know not what 
— what have you got there, I say? " 

" father, the pig, the pig, do come and taste how 
nice the burnt pig eats.'' 

The ears of Ho-ti tingled with horror. He cursed his 

20 son, and he cursed himself that ever he should beget a 
son that should eat burnt pig. 

Bo-bo, whose scent was wonderfully sharpened since 
morning, soon raked out another pig, and fairly rending 
it asunder, thrust the lesser half by main force into the 

25 fists of Ho-ti, still shouting out, ^' Eat, eat, eat the burnt 
pig, father, only taste, — Lord," — with such-like bar- 
barous ejaculations, cramming all the while as if he 
would choke. 

Ho-ti trembled every joint while he grasped the abom- 

30 inable thing, wavering whether he should not put his 
son to death for an unnatural young monster, when the 
crackling scorching his fingers, as it had done his son's, 
and applying the same remedy to them, he in his turn 
tasted some of its flavour, which, make what sour mouths 



A DISSERTATION UPON ROAST PIG 1G9 

he would for a pretence, proved not altogether displeas- 
ing to him. In conclusion (for the manuscript here is 
a little tedious) both father and son fairly sat down to 
the mess, and never left off till they had despatched all 
that remained of the litter. 5 

Bo-bo was strictly enjoined not to let the secret es- 
cape, for the neighbours would certainly have stoned 
them for a couple of abominable wretches, who could 
think of improving upon the good meat which God had 
sent them. Nevertheless, strange stories got about. It 10 
was observed that Ho-ti's cottage was burnt down now 
more frequently than ever. Nothing but fires from this 
time forward. Some would break out in broad day, 
others in the night time. As often as the sow farrowed, 
so sure was the house of Ho-ti to be in a blaze ; and Ho-ti 15 
« himself, which was the more remarkable, instead of chas- 
tising his son, seemed to grow more indulgent to him 
than ever. At length they were watched, the terrible 
mystery discovered, and father and son summoned to 
take their trial at Pekin, then an inconsiderable assize 20 
town. Evidence was given, the obnoxious food itself 
produced in court, and verdict about to be pronounced, 
when the foreman of the jury begged that some of the 
burnt pig, of which the culprits stood accused, might 
be handed into the box. He handled it, and they all 25 
handled it, and burning their fingers, as Bo-bo and 
his father had done before them, and nature prompting 
to each of them the same remedy, against the face of 
all the facts, and the clearest charge which judge 
had ever given, — ^to the surprise of the whole court, 30 
townsfolk, strangers, reporters, and all present — with- . 
out leaving the box, or any manner of consultation 
whatever, they brought in a simultaneous verdict of 
Not Guilty. 
15 



170 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

The judge, who was a shrewd fellow, winked at the 
manifest iniquity of the decision; and, when the court 
was dismissed, went privily, and bought up all the pigs 
that could be had for love or money. In a few days his 
5 Lordship's town house was observed to be on fire. The 
thing took wing, and now there was nothing to be seen 
but fires in every direction. Fuel and pigs grew enor- 
mously dear all over the district. The insurance offices 
one and all shut up shop. People built slighter and 

10 slighter every day, until it was feared that the very sci- 
ence of architecture would in no long time be lost to the 
world. Thus this custom of firing houses continued, till 
in process of time, says my manuscript, a sage arose, 
like our Locke, who made a discovery, that the flesh of 

15 swine, or indeed of any other animal, might be cooked 
{burnt, as they called it) without the necessity of con- 
suming a whole house to dress it. Then first began the 
rude form of a gridiron. Roasting by the string, or spit, 
came in a century or two later, I forget in whose 

20 dynasty. By such slow degrees, concludes the manu- 
script, do the most useful, and seemingly the most obvi- 
ous arts, make their way among mankind. 

Without placing too implicit faith in the account 
above given, it must be agreed, that if a worthy pretext 

25 for so dangerous an experiment as setting houses on fire 
(especially in these days) could be assigned in favour 
of any culinary object, that pretext and excuse might be 
found in roast pig. 

^ Of all the delicacies in the whole mundus edibilis, I will 

30 maintain it to be the most delicate — princeps obsoniorum 



/ 



1. winked at: purposely overlooked. 
14. Locke. See note on page 250. 

29. mundus edibilis: world of food. 

30. princeps obsoniorum: chief of the dainties. 



A DISSEKTATION UPON KOAST PIG 171 

I speak not of your grown porkers — things between 
pig and pork — those hobbydehoys — but a young and 
tender suckling — under a moon old — guiltless as yet of 
the sty — with no original speck of the amor immiin- 
ditice, the hereditary failing of the first parent, yet mani- 5 
fest — his voice as yet not broken, but something between 
a childish treble, and a grumble — the mild forerunner, 
or prceludmm, of a grunt. 

He must be roasted. I am not ignorant that our an- 
cestors ate them seethed, or boiled — but what a sacrifice 10 
of the exterior tegument ! 

There is no flavour comparable, I will contend, to that 
of the crisp, taw^ny, well-watched, not over-roasted, 
crackling, as it is well called — the very teeth are invited 
to their share of the pleasure at this banquet in over- 15 
coming the coy, brittle resistance — with the adhesive 
oleaginous — call it not fat — but an indefinable sweet- 
ness growing up to it — the tender blossoming of fat — 
fat cropped in the bud — taken in the shoot — in the first 
innocence — the cream and quintessence of the child- 20 
pig's yet pure food — the lean, no lean, but a kind of 
animal manna, — or, rather, fat and lean (if it must be 
so) so blended and running into each other, that both 
together make but one ambrosian result, or common 
substance. 25 

Behold him, while he is ^^ doing " — it seemeth rather 
a refreshing warmth, than a scorching heat, that he is 



2. hobbydehoys: lubberly ones, at the awkward age between 
young pigs and grown porkers. 

4-5. amor immunditiaB : love of filth. 

8. praBludium: prelude. 

11. exterior tegument: the outer skin — the "crackling." 

24. ambrosian: like ambrosia, the food of the gods in Greek 
mythology. 



172 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

so passive to. How equably he twirleth round the 
string! — Now he is just done. To see the extreme sen- 
sibility of that tender age, he hath wept out his pretty 
eyes — radiant jellies — shooting stars — 
/h See him in the dish, his second cradle, how meek he 
lieth! — wouldst thou have had this innocent grow up to 
the grossness and indocility which too often accompany 
maturer swinehood? Ten to one he would have proved 
a glutton, a sloven, an obstinate, disagreeable animal — 
10 wallowing in all manner of filthy conversation — from 
these sins he is happily snatched away — 

Ere sin could blight, or sorrow fade, 
Death came with timely care — • 

his memory is odoriferous — no clown curseth, while his 
15 stomach half rejecteth, the rank bacon — no coalheaver 
bolteth him in reeking sausages — he hath a fair sepul- 
chre in the grateful stomach of the judicious epicure — 
and for such a tomb might be content to die. 

He is the best of sapors. Pine-apple is great. She is 
20 indeed almost too transcendent — a delight, if not sinful, 
yet so like to sinning, that really a tender-conscienced 
person would do well to pause — too ravishing for mortal 
taste, she woundeth and excoriateth the lips that ap- 
proach her — like lovers' kisses, she biteth — she is a 
25 pleasure bordering on pain from the fierceness and in- 
sanity of her relish — but she stoppeth at the palate — 
she meddleth not with the appetite — and the coarsest 
hunger might barter her consistently for a mutton chop. 



10. conversation: behavior. See II Peter, ii, 7. 
12-13. Quoted from Coleridge's " Epitaph on an Infant." Try 
to imagine Coleridge's feeling at being quoted in this connection. 
19. sapors: flavors. 



A DISSERTATION UPON ROAST PIG 173 

Pig — let me speak his praise — is no less provocative 
of the appetite, than he is satisfactory to the criticalness 
of the censorious palate. The strong man may batten on 
him, and the weakling refuseth not his mild juices. 

Unlike to mankind's mixed characters, a bundle of 5 
virtues and vices, inexplicably intertwisted, and not to 
be unravelled without hazard, he is — good throughout. 
No part of him is better or worse than another. He 
helpeth, as far as his little means extend, all around. 
He is the least envious of banquets. He is all neigh- 10 
bours' fare. 

I am one of those, who freely and ungrudgingly im- 
part a share of the good things of this life which fall to 
their lot (few as mine are in this kind) to a frien'd. I 
protest I take as great an interest in my friend's pleas- 15 
ures, his relishes, and proper satisfactions, as in mine 
own. ^' Presents,'' I often say, '^ endear Absents." 
Hares, pheasants, partridges, snipes, barn-door chickens 
(those " tame villatic fowl "), capons, plovers, brawn, 
barrels of oysters, I dispense as freely as I receive them. 20 
I love to taste them, as it were, upon the tongue of my 
friend. But a stop must be put somewhere. One would 
not, like Lear, '' give everything." I make my stand 
upon pig. Methinks it is an ingratitude to the Giver 
of all good flavours, to extra-domiciliate, or send out of 25 
the house, slightingly, (under pretext of friendship, or 
I know not what), a blessing so particularly adapted. 



3. censorious palate: critical taste. 

8-9. He helpeth ... all around: there is enough of him so 
that each may receive a portion. 

19. " tame villatic fowl." From Milton's " Samson Agonistes." 
villatic means rural, capons, fowls, and brawn, pigs, fattened for 
the table. 

23. " give everything." Cf . " King Lear," IT, iv, 246. 



174 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

predestined, I may say, to my individual palate — It 
argues an insensibility. 

I remember a touch of conscience in this kind at 
school. My good old aunt, who never parted from me 
5 at the end of a holiday without stuffing a sweetmeat, or 
some nice thing, into my pocket, had dismissed me one 
evening with a smoking plum-cake, fresh from the oven. 
In my way to school (it was over London Bridge) a 
grey-headed old beggar saluted me (I have no doubt at 

10 this time of day that he was a counterfeit). I had no 
pence to console him with, and in the vanity of self- 
denial, and the very coxcombry of charity, schoolboy- 
like, I made him a present of — the whole cake ! I walked 
on a little, buoyed up, as one is on such occasions, with 

15 a sweet soothing of self-satisfaction; but before I had 
got to the end of the bridge, my better feelings returned, 
and I burst into tears, thinking how ungrateful I had 
been to my good aunt, to go and give her good gift away 
to a stranger, that I had never seen before, and who 

20 might be a bad man for aught I knew; and then I 
thought of the pleasure my aunt would be taking in 
thinking that I — I myself, and not another — would 
eat her nice cake — and what should I say to her 
the next time I saw her — how^ naughty I was to part 

25 with her pretty present — and the odour of that spicy 
cake came back upon my recollection, and the pleas- 
ure and the curiosity I had taken in seeing her make 



8. (it was over London Bridge): another of Lamb's delib- 
erate misstatements. Christ's Hospital was on the north side of 
the Thames. 

9-10. at this time of day: at this late date — wise as I am now. 

11-12. vanity of self-denial, etc.: giving, not for the sake of 
relieving suffering, but for the prudish feeling of comfortable 
self-satisfaction that would follow. 



A DISSEKTATION UPON ROAST PIG 175 

it, and her joy when she sent it to the oven, and how 
disappointed she would feel that I had never had a 
bit of it in my. mouth at last — and I blamed my im- 
pertinent spirit of alms-giving, and out-of -place hypoc- 
risy of goodness, and above all I wished never to see 5 
the face again of that insidious, good-for-nothing, old 
grey impostor. 

Our ancestors were nice in their method of sacrificing 
these tender victims. We read of pigs whipt to death 
with something of a shock, as we hear of any other ob- 10 
solete custom. The age of discipline is gone by, or it 
would be curious to inquire (in a philosophical light 
merely) what efifect this process might have towards in- 
tenerating and dulcifying a substance, naturally so mild 
and dulcet as the flesh of young pigs. It looks like re- 15 
fining a violet. Yet we should be cautious, while we 
condemn the inhumanity, how we censure the wisdom 
of the practice. It might impart a gusto — 

I remember an hypothesis, argued upon by the young 
students, when I was at St. Omer's, and maintained 20 
with much learning and pleasantry on both sides, 
'' Whether, supposing that the flavour of a pig who ob- 
tained his death by whipping (per flagellatidnem ex- 
iremam) superadded a pleasure upon the palate of a 
man more intense than any possible suffering we can 25 
conceive in the animal, is man justified in using that 
method of putting the animal to death ? ' ' I forget the 
decision. 

His sauce should be considered. Decidedly, a few 
bread crumbs, done up with his liver and brains, and a 30 
dash of mild sage. But, banish, dear Mrs. Cook, I be- 

8. nice: the word is here used in its proper sense. 

13-14. intenerating and dulcifying: making tender and sweet. 

23-24. per flagellationem extremam: by whipping to death. 



176 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

seech you, the whole onion tribe. Barbecue your whole 
hogs to your palate, steep them in shalots, stuff them 
out with plantations of the rank and guilty garlic; you 
cannot poison them, or make them stronger than they 
are — but consider, he is a weakling — a flower. 



1. Barbecue: roast whole. 

2. shalots: a vegetable akin to garlic, used for seasoning. 



XVII. A BACHELOR'S COMPLAINT OF THE BE- 
HAVIOUR OF MARRIED PEOPLE 

As a single man, I have spent a good deal of my time 
in noting down the infirmities of Married People, to 
console myself for those superior pleasures, which they 
tell me I have lost by remaining as I am. 

I cannot say that the quarrels of men and their wives 5 
ever made any great impression upon me, or had much 
tendency to strengthen me in those anti-social resolu- 
tions, which I took up long ago upon more substantial 
considerations. What oftenest offends me at the houses 
of married persons where I visit, is an error of quite a 10 
different description; — it is that they are too loving. 

Not too loving neither: that does not explain my 
meaning. Besides, why should that offend me? The 
very act of separating themselves from the rest of the 
world, to have the fuller enjoyment of each other's so- 15 
ciety, implies that they prefer one another to all the 
world. 

But what I complain of is, that they carry this prefer- 
ence so undisguisedly, they perk it up in the faces of us 
single people so shamelessly, you cannot be in their 20 
company a moment without being made to feel, by some 
indirect hint or open avowal, that you are not the object 
of this preference. Now there are some things which 
give no offence, while implied or taken for granted 
merely; but expressed, there is much offence in them. 25 
If a man were to accost the first homely-featured or 

177 



178 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

plain-dressed young woman of his acquaintance, and tell 
her bluntly, that she was not handsome or rich enough 
for him, and he could not marry her, he would deserve 
to be kicked for his ill manners ; yet no less is implied in 
5 the fact, that having access and opportunity of putting 
the question to her, he has never yet thought fit to do it. 
The young woman understands this as clearly as if it 
were put into words; but no reasonable young woman 
would think of making this the ground of a quarrel. 

10 Just as little right have a married couple to tell me by 
speeches, and looks that are scarce less plain than 
speeches, that I am not the happy man, — the lady's 
choice. It is enough that I know I am not : I do not 
want this perpetual reminding. 

15 The display of superior knowledge or riches may be 
made sufficiently mortifying; but these admit of a pal- 
liative. The knowledge which is brought out to insult 
me, may accidentally improve me ; and in the rich man 's 
houses and pictures, — his parks and gardens, I have a 

20 temporary usufruct at least. But the display of mar- 
ried happiness has none of these palliatives: it is 
throughout pure, unrecompensed, unqualified insult. 

Marriage by its best title is a monopoly, and not of 
the least invidious sort. It is the cunning of most pos- 

25 sessors of any exclusive privilege to keep their advan- 
tage as much out of sight as possible, that their less 
favoured neighbours, seeing little of the benefit, may the 
less be disposed to question the right. But these mar- 
ried monopolists thrust the most obnoxious part of their 

30 patent into our faces. 

Nothing is to me more distasteful than that entire 



16-17. palliative: remedy; extenuating circumstance. 

20. usufruct: right of enjoying things belonging to another. 



A BACHELOR'S COMPLAINT 179 

complacency and satisfaction which beam in the coun- 
tenances of a new-married couple, — in that of the lady 
particularly: it tells you, that her lot is disposed of in 
this world; that you can have no hopes of her. It is 
true, I have none; nor wishes either, perhaps: but this 5 
is one of those truths which ought, as I said before, to be 
taken for granted, not expressed. 

The excessive airs which those people give themselves, 
founded on the ignorance of us unmarried people, would 
be more offensive if they were less irrational. AVe will 10 
allow them to understand the mysteries belonging to 
their own craft better than we who have not had the 
happiness to be made free of the company: but their 
arrogance is not content within these limits. If a single 
person presume to offer his opinion in their presence, 15 
though upon the most indifferent subject, he is imme- 
diately silenced as an incompetent person. Nay, a 
young married lady of my acquaintance, who, the best 
of the jest was, had not changed her condition above a 
fortnight before, in a question on which I had the mis- 20 
fortune to differ from her, respecting the properest 
mode of breeding oysters for the London market, had 
the assurance to ask with a sneer, how such an old 
Bachelor as I could pretend to know any thing about 
such matters. 25 

But what I have spoken of hitherto is nothing to the 
airs which these creatures give themselves when they 
come, as they generally do, to have children. When I 
consider how little of a rarity children are, — that every * 
street and blind alley swarms with them, — that the poor- 30 
est people commonly have them in most abundance, — 
that there are few marriages that are not blest with at 
least one of these bargains, — how often they turn out 
ill, and defeat the fond hopes of their parents, taking 



180 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

to vicious courses, which end in poverty, disgrace, the 
gallows, &c. — I cannot for my life tell what cause for 
pride there can possibly be in having them. If they 
were young phoenixes, indeed, that were born but one 
5 in a year, there might be a pretext. But when they are 

so common 

, I do not advert to the insolent merit which they as- 
sume with their husbands on these occasions. Let them 
look to that. But why ive, who are not their natural- 

10 born subjects, should be expected to bring our spices, 
myrrh, and incense, — our tribute and homage of admira- 
tion, — I do not see. 

' ' Like as the arrows in the hand of the giant, even so 
are the young children : " so says the excellent office in 

15 our Prayer-book appointed for the churching of women. 
' ' Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them : ' ' 
So say I; but then don't let him discharge his quiver 
upon us that are weaponless; — let them be arrows, but 
not to gall and stick us. I have generally observed that 

20 these arrows are double-headed : they have two forks, to 
be sure to hit with one or the other. As for instance, 
where you come into a house which is full of children, 
if you happen to take no notice of them (you are think- 
ing of something else, perhaps, and turn a deaf ear to 

25 their innocent caresses), you are set down as un- 
tractable, morose, a hater of children. On the other 
hand, if you find them more than usually engaging, — if 
you are taken with their pretty manners, and set about 

• in earnest to romp and play with them, some pretext or 

30 other is sure to be found for sending them out of the 



10-lL Cf. Matthew, ii. 11. 

13-16. Like arrows . . . Happy is the man, etc. Cf. Psalms, 
cxxvii, 4-5. churching of women: the service of thanksgiving over 
a woman's recovery after child-birth. 



A BACHELORVS COMPLAINT 181 

room : they are too noisy or boisterous, /)r Mr. does 

not like children. AVith one or other of these forks the 
arrow is sure to hit you. 

I could forgive their jealousy, and dispense with 
toying with their brats, if it gives them any pain; 5 
but I think it unreasonable to be called upon to love 
them, where I see no occasion, — to love a w^hole fam- 
ily, perhaps, eight, nine, or ten, indiscriminately, — 
to love all the pretty dears, because children are so 
engaging. 10 

I know there is a proverb, ^ ^ Love me, love my dog ; ' ' 
that is not always so very practicable, particularly if 
the dog be set upon you to tease you or snap at you in 
sport. But a dog, or a lesser thing, — any inanimate sub- 
stance, as a keepsake, a watch or a ring, a tree, or the 15 
place where we last parted when my friend went away 
upon a long absence, I can make shift to love, because 
I love him, and anything that reminds me of him ; pro- 
vided it be in its nature indifferent, and apt to receive 
whatever hue fancy can give it. But children have a 20 
real character and an essential being of themselves: 
they are amiable or unamiable per se; I must love or 
hate them as I see cause for either in their qualities. A 
child 's nature is too serious a thing to admit of its being 
regarded as a mere appendage to another being, and to 25 
be loved or hated accordingly : they stand with me upon 
their own stock, as much as men and women do. ! 
but you will say, sure it is an attractive age, — there is 
something in the tender years of infancy that of itself 



11. "Love me, love my dog." Lamb humorously treats this old 
proverb in " Popular Fallacies," in the second series of the 
"Essays of Elia." 

22. per se: of themselves, according to their own individu- 
alities. 



182 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

charms us. That is the very reason why I am more nice 
about them. I know that a sweet child is the sweetest 
thing in nature, not even excepting the delicate crea- 
tures which bear them; but the prettier the kind of a 
5 thing is, the more desirable it is that it should be pretty 
of its kind. One daisy differs not much from another in 
glory; but a violet should look and smell the daintiest. 
— I was always rather squeamish in my women and 
children. 

10 But this is not the worst : one must be admitted into 
their familiarity at least, before they can complain of 
inattention. It implies visits, and some kind of inter- 
course. But if the husband be a man with whom you 
have lived on a friendly footing before marriage, — if 

15 you did not come in on the wife's side, — if you did not 
sneak into the house in her train, but were an old friend 
in fast habits of intimacy before their courtship was so 
much as thought on, — look about you — your tenure is 
precarious — before a twelvemonth shall roll over your 

20 head, you shall find your old friend gradually grow cool 
and altered towards you, and at last seek opportunities 
of breaking with you. I have scarce a married friend 
of my acquaintance, upon whose firm faith I can rely, 
whose friendship did not commence after the period of 

25 his marriage. With some limitations they can endure 
that : but that the good man should have dared to enter 
into a solemn league of friendship in which they were 
not consulted, though it happened before they knew him, 
— before they that are now man and wife ever met, — 



L nice: again not in the colloquial sense, but here meaning 
fastidious. 

6-7. One daisy differs not much from another in glory: a 
memory of I Corinthians, xv, 41. 

8. squeamish: particular. 



A BACHELOK'S COMPLAINT 183 

this is intolerable to them. Every long friendship, every 
old authentic intimacy, must be brought into their of- 
fice to be new stamped with their currency, as a sov- 
ereign Prince calls in the good old money that was 
coined in some reign before he was born or thought of, 5 
to be new marked and minted with the stamp of his 
authority, before he will let it pass current in the world. 
You may guess what luck generally befalls such a rusty 
piece of metal as I am in these neiv mintings. 

Innumerable are the ways which they take to insult 10 
and worm you out of their husband's confidence. 
Laughing at all you say with a kind of wonder, as if 
you were a queer kind of fellow that said good things, 
hut an oddity^ is one of the ways; — they have a par- 
ticular kind of stare for the purpose; — till at last the 15 
husband, who used to defer to your judgment, and 
would pass over some excrescences of understanding and 
manner for the sake of a general vein of observation 
(not quite vulgar) which he perceived in you, begins to 
suspect whether you are not altogether a humourist, — 20 
a fellow well enough to have consorted with in his 
bachelor days, but not quite so proper to be introduced 
to ladies. This may be called the staring way; and is 
that which has oftenest been put in practice against me. 

Then there is the exaggerating way, or the way of 25 
irony: that is, where they find you an object of especial 
regard with their husband, who is not so easily to be 
shaken from the lasting attachment founded on esteem 
which he has conceived towards you ; by never-qualified 
exaggerations to cry up all that you say or do, till the 30 



17. excrescences: disfiguring outgrowths, hke warts on the 
human body or fungi on trees. Here " peculiar outcroppings of 
learning " — well said of Lamb. 

20. humourist. See note on page 245. 



184 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

good man, who understands well enough that it is all 
done in compliment to him, grows weary of the debt of 
gratitude which is due to so much candour, and by re- 
laxing a little on his part, and taking down a peg or two 
5 in his enthusiasm, sinks at length to that kindly level 
of moderate esteem, — that '^ decent affection and com- 
placent kindness '' towards you, where she herself can 
join in sympathy with him without much stretch and 
violence to her sincerity. 

10 Another way (for the ways they have to accomplish 
so desirable a purpose are infinite) is, with a kind of 
innocent simplicity, continually to mistake what it was 
which first made their husband fond of you. If an es- 
teem for something excellent in your moral character 

15 was that which riveted the chain which she is to break, 
upon any imaginary discovery of a want of poignancy 
in your conversation, she will cry, ' ' I thought, my dear, 

you described your friend, Mr. , as a great wit.'' 

If, on the other hand, it was for some supposed charm 

20 in your conversation that he first grew^ to like you, and 
was content for this to overlook some trifling irregu- 
larities in your moral deportment, upon the first notice 
of any of these she as readily exclaims, ^ * This, my dear, 
is your good Mr. .'' One good lady w^hom I took 

25 the liberty of expostulating with for not showing me 
quite so much respect as I thought due to her husband's 
old friend, had the candour to confess to me that she 

had often heard Mr. speak of me before marriage, 

and that she had conceived a great desire to be ac- 

30 quainted with me, but that the sight of me had very 
much disappointed her expectations; for from her hus- 



6-7. "decent affection and complacent kindness": from "Doug- 
las," a tragedy by J. Home (1757), I, i. 



A BACHELOR'S COMPLAINT 185 

band's representations of me, she had formed a notion 
that she was to see a fine, tall, officer-like looking man 
(I use her very words) ; the very reverse of which 
proved to be the truth. This was candid ; and I had the 
civility not to ask her in return, how she came to pitch 5 
upon a standard of personal accomplishments for her 
husband 's friends which differed so much from his own ; 
for my friend's dimensions as near as possible approxi- 
mate to mine ; he standing five feet five in his shoes, in 
which I have the advantage of him by about half an 10 
inch; and he no more than myself exhibiting any indi- 
cations of a martial character in his air or countenance. 
These are some of the mortifications which I have en- 
countered in the absurd attempt to visit at their houses. 
To enumerate them all would be a vain endeavour: I 15 
shall therefore just glance at the very common impro- 
priety of which married ladies are guilty, — of treating 
us as if we were their husbands, and vice versa, I mean, 
when they use us with familiarity, and their husbands 
with ceremony. Testacea, for instance, kept nie the 20 
other night two or three hours beyond my usual time 

of supping, while she was fretting because Mr. did 

not come home, till the oysters were all spoiled, rather 
than she would be guilty of the impoliteness of touching 
one in his absence. This was reversing the point of good 25 
manners: for ceremony is an invention to take off the 
uneasy feeling which we derive from knowing ourselves 
to be less the object of love and esteem with a fellow- 
creature than some other person is. It endeavours to 
make up, by superior attentions in little points, for that 30 



20. Testacea: "shell-fish," with a feminine ending for the host- 
ess. Lamb imitates from the " Spectator " this concealing of 
identity under a classical name. Here the name is one of Lamb's 
own creation, whose appositeness is clear. 
16 



186 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

invidious preference which it is forced to deny in the 
greater. Had Testacea kept the oysters back for me, 
and withstood her husband's importunities to go to sup- 
per, she would have acted according to the strict rules 
5 of propriety. I know no ceremony that ladies are bound 
to observe to their husbands, beyond the point of a mod- 
est behaviour and decorum: therefore I must protest 
against the vicarious gluttony of Cerasia, who at her 
own table sent away a dish of Morellas, which I was ap- 

10 plying to with great good will, to her husband at the 
other end of the table, and recommended a plate of less 
extraordinary gooseberries to my unwedded palate in 
their stead. Neither can I excuse the wanton affront 
of . 

15 But I am weary of stringing up all my married ac- 
quaintance by Roman denominations. Let them amend 
and change their manners, or I promise to record the 
full-length English of their names, to the terror of all 
such desperate offenders in future. 



8. Cerasia : same as above, " Cherry." 

9. Morellas are a kind of cherry. 

16. Roman denominations: by names made up from the Latin. 



XVIII. MODERN GALLANTRY 

In comparing modern with ancient manners, we 
are pleased to compliment ourselves upon the point 
of gallantry; a certain obsequiousness, or deferential 
respect, which we are supposed to pay to females, as 
females. 5 

I shall believe that this principle actuates our con- 
duct, when I can forget, that in the nineteenth century 
of the era from which we date our civility, we are but 
just beginning to leave off the very frequent practice of 
whipping females in public, in common with the 10 
coarsest male offenders. 

I shall believe it to be influential, when I can shut my 
eyes to the fact, that in England women are still occa- 
sionally — hanged. 

I shall believe in it, when actresses are no longer sub- 15 
ject to be hissed off a stage by gentlemen. 

I shall believe in it, when Dorimant hands a fish-wife 
across the kennel ; or assists the apple-woman to pick up 
her wandering fruit, which some unlucky dray has just 
dissipated. 20 

I shall believe in it, when the Dorimants in humbler 
life, who would be thought in their way notable adepts 
in this refinement, shall act upon it in places where they 
are not known, or think themselves not observed — when 



17. Dorimant: a libertine who prides himself on his gentility; 
a character in Etherege's "The Man of Mode" (1G76). 

18. kennel. See footnote on page 158, line 14. 

187 



188 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

I shall see the traveller for some rich tradesman part 
with his admired box-coat, to spread it over the de- 
fenceless shoulders of the poor woman, who is passing 
to her parish on the roof of the same stage-coach with 
5 him, drenched in the rain — when I shall no longer see a 
woman standing up in the pit of a London theatre, till 
she is sick and faint with the exertion, with men about 
her, seated at their ease, and jeering at her distress; till 
one, that seems to have more manners or conscience than 

10 the rest, significantly declares ^^ she should be welcome 
to his seat, if she were a little younger and handsomer. ' ' 
Place this dapper warehouseman, or that rider, in a 
circle of their own female acquaintance, and you shall 
confess you have not seen a politer-bred man in 

15 Lothbury. 

Lastly, I shall begin to believe that there is some such 
principle influencing our conduct, when more than one- 
half of the drudgery and coarse servitude of the world 
shall cease to be performed by women. 

20 Until that day comes, I shall never believe this boasted 
point to be anything more than a conventional fiction; a 
pageant got up between the'sexes, in a certain rank, and 
at a certain time of life, in which both find their account 
equally. 

25 I shall be even disposed to rank it among the salutary 
fictions of life, when in polite circles I shall see the same 
attentions paid to age as to youth, to homely features 



2. box-coat: a greatcoat worn by travellers on the boxes of 
stage-coaches. 

15. Lothbury: a London street, where may be seen many busi- 
ness men — men of the class Lamb has been describing in lines 
12-13. 

22. pageant: a show; display. 

23. find their account: profit. 



MODERN GALLANTRY 189 

as to handsome, to coarse complexions as to clear — to 
the woman, as she is a woman, not as she is a beauty, a 
fortune, or a title. 

I shall believe it to be something more than a name, 
when a well-dressed gentleman in a well-dressed com- 5 
pany can advert to the topic of female old age without 
exciting, and intending to excite, a sneer: — when the 
phrases ^' antiquated virginity, '' and such a one has 
*^ overstood her market," pronounced in good company, 
shall raise immediate offence in man, or woman, that 10 
shall hear them spoken. 

Joseph Paice, of Bread Street Hill, merchant, and one 
of the Directors of the South-Sea Company — the same 
to whom Edw^ards, the Shakespeare commentator, has 
addressed a fine sonnet — was the only pattern of con- 15 
sistent gallantry I have met with. He took me under 
his shelter at an early age, and bestowed some pains 
upon me. I owe to his precepts and example whatever 
there is of the man of business (and that is not much) 
in my composition. It was not his fault that I did not 20 
profit more. Though bred a Presbyterian, and brought 
up a merchant, he was the finest gentleman of his time. 
He had not one system of attention to females in the 
drawing-room, and another in the shop, or at the stall. 
I do not mean that he made no distinction. But he 25 



8. " antiquated virginity": a phrase in Johnson's Ramller, 
No. 39. 

9. "overstood her market": has become shop- worn; has not 
moved off in the matrimonial market as have the more attractive 
women. 

14. Edwards, Thomas: an uncle of Paice; a critic of repute, 
but a mediocre poet, says Ainger. 

24. the stall: street or market booths where vegetables, fruits, 
and the like are exposed for sale. 



190 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

never lost sight of sex, or overlooked it in the casualties 
of a disadA^antageous sitviation. I have seen him stand 
bare-headed — smile if you please — to a poor servant girl, 
while she has been inquiring of him the way to some 
5 street — in such a posture of unforced civility, as neither 
to embarrass her in the acceptance, nor himself in the 
offer, of it. He was no dangler, in the common accepta- 
tion of the word, after women: but he reverenced and 
upheld, in every form in which it came before him, 

10 ivomanhood. I have seen him — nay, smile not — tenderly 
escorting a market-woman, whom he had encountered 
in a shower, exalting his umbrella over her poor basket 
of fruit, that it might receive no damage, with as much 
carefulness as if she had been a Countess. To the rev- 

15 erend form of Female Eld he would yield the wall 
(though it were to an ancient beggar-woman) with more 
ceremony than we can afford to show our grandams. He 
was the Preux Chevalier of Age ; the Sir Calidore, or Sir 
Tristan, to those who have no Calidores or Tristans to 

20 defend them. The roses, that had long faded thence, 
still bloomed for him in those withered and yellow 
cheeks. 

He was never married, but in his youth he paid his 
addresses to the beautiful Susan Winstanley — old Win- 

25 Stanley's daughter of Clapton — who dying in the early 
days of their courtship, confirmed in him the resolution 



1-2. casualties of a disadvantageous situation: the accidents of 
fortune in placing one in a humble position, in life. 

15. Female Eld: female old age. yield the wall. Cf. footnote 
on page 158, line 14. 

18. Preux Chevalier: valiant knight. 

24. Susan Winstanley. Miss Anne Manning's " Family Pic- 
tures " (1860) fills out the portrait of Miss Winstanley here 
presented. 



MODEKN GALLANTRY 191 

of perpetual bachelorship. It was during their short 
courtship, he told me, that he had been one day treat- 
ing his mistress with a profusion of civil speeches — the 
common gallantries — to which kind of thing she had 
hitherto manifested no repugnance — but in this instance 5 
with no effect. He could not obtain from her a decent 
acknowledgment in return. She rather seemed to resent 
his compliments. He could not set it down to caprice, 
for the lady had always shown herself above that little- 
ness. When he ventured on the following day, finding 10 
her a little better humoured, to expostulate with her on 
her coldness of yesterday, she confessed, with her usual 
frankness, that she had no sort of dislike to his atten- 
tions; that she could even endure some high-flown com- 
pliments; that a young woman placed in her situation 15 
had a right to expect all sort of civil things said to her ; 
that she hoped she could digest a dose of adulation, 
short of insincerity, with as little injury to her humility 
as most young women : but that — a little before he had 
commenced his compliments — she had overheard him 20 
by accident, in rather rough language, rating a young 
woman, who had not brought home his cravats quite to 
the appointed time, and she thought to herself, *^ As I 
am Miss Susan Winstanley, and a young lady — a re- 
puted beauty, and known to be a fortune, — I can have 25 
my choice of the finest speeches from the mouth of this 
very fine gentleman who is courting me — but if I had 
been poor Mary Such-a-one {naming the milliner), — 
and had failed of bringing home the cravats to the ap- 
pointed hour — though perhaps I had sat up half the 30 
night to forward them — what sort of compliments 



17. digest a dose of adulation: " swallow a comphment," as we 
should say. 



192 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

should I have received then? — And my woman's pride 
came to my assistance; and I thought, that if it were 
only to do me honour, a female, like myself, might have 
received handsomer usage: and I was determined not 
5 to accept any fine speeches, to the compromise of that 
sex, the belonging to which was after all my strongest 
claim and title to them." 

I think the lady discovered both generosity, and a 
just way of thinking, in this rebuke which she gave her 

10 lover ; and I have sometimes imagined, that the uncom- 
mon strain of courtesy, which through life regulated 
the actions and behaviour of my friend towards all of 
womankind indiscriminately, owed its happy origin to 
this seasonable lesson from the lips of his lamented 

15 mistress. 

I wish the whole female world would entertain the 
same notion of these things that Miss Winstanley 
showed. Then we should see something of the spirit 
of consistent gallantry; and no longer witness the 

20 anomaly of the same man — a pattern of true politeness 
to a wife — of cold contempt, or rudeness, to a sister — 
the idolater of his female mistress — the disparager and 
despiser of his no less female aunt, or unfortunate — still 
female — maiden cousin. Just so much respect as a 

25 woman derogates from her own sex, in whatever con- 
dition placed — her handmaid, or dependent — she de- 
serves to have diminished from herself on that score; 
and probably will feel the diminution, when youth, and 
beauty, and advantages, not inseparable from sex, shall 

30 lose of their attraction. What a woman should demand 
of a man in courtship, or after it, is first — respect for 



8. discovered: in the old meaning of the word ,to uncover, to 
reveal. 
25. derogates: takes away from. 



MODERN GALLANTRY 193 

her as she is a woman; — and next to that — to be re- 
spected by him above all other women. But let her 
stand upon her female character as upon a foundation ; 
and let the attentions, incident to individual preference, 
be so many pretty additaments and ornaments — as 
many, and as fanciful, as you please — to that main 
structure. Let her first lesson be — with sweet Susan 
Winstanley — to reverence her sex. 



__- XIX. OLD CHINA 

I HAVE an almost feminine partiality for old china. 
When I go to see any great house, I inquire for the 
china-closet, and next for the picture-gallery. I cannot 
defend the order of preference, but by saying, that we 
5 have all some taste or other, of too ancient a date to 
admit of our remembering distinctly that it was an 
acquired one. I can call to mind the first play, and the 
first exhibition, that I was taken to; but I am not con- 
scious of a time when china jars and saucers were intro- 

10 duced into my imagination. 

I had no repugnance then — why should I now have ? 
— to those little, lawless, azure-tinctured grotesques, that 
under the notion of men and women, float about, un- 
circumscribed by any element, in that world before per- 

15 spective — a china tea-cup. 

I like to see my old friends — whom distance cannot 
diminish — figuring up in the air (so they appear to our 
optics), yet on terra firma still — for so we must in cour- 
tesy interpret that speck of deeper blue, which the 

20 decorous artist, to prevent absurdity, has made to spring 
up beneath their sandals. 



12. lawless, azure-tinctured grotesques: quaint figures in blue 
which do not conform to any of the laws of art or perspective 
(lines 14-15), the device by which objects drawn or painted on a 
flat surface are given depth and distance, as they would really 
appear to the eye. 

18. terra firma: dry land. 
194 



OLD CHINA 195 

I love the men with women's faces, and the women, if 
possible, with still more womanish expressions. 

Here is a young and courtly Mandarin, handing tea 
to a lady from a salver — two miles off. See how dis- 
tance seems to set off respect ! And here the same lady, 5 
or another — for likeness is identity on tea-cups — is step- 
ping into a little fairy boat, moored on the hither side 
of this calm garden river, with a dainty mincing foot, 
which in a right angle of incidence (as angles go in our 
world) must infallibly land her in the midst of a flowery 10 
mead — a furlong off on the other side of the same 
strange stream! 

Farther on — if far or near can be predicated of 
their world — see horses, trees, pagodas, dancing the hays. 

Here — a cow and rabbit couchant, and co-extensive — 15 
so objects show, seen through the lucid atmosphere of 
fine Cathay. 

I was pointing out to my cousin last evening, over our 
Hyson (which we are old-fashioned enough to drink un- 
mixed still of an afternoon), some of these speciosa 20 
miractila upon a set of extraordinary old blue china (a 
recent purchase) which we were now for the first time 
using; and could not help remarking, how favourable 
circumstances had been to us of late years, that we could 
afford to please the eye sometimes with trifles of this 25 
sort — when a passing sentiment seemed to over-shade 



3. Mandarin: a Chinese official. 

14-15. the hays: an old round dance of the English country 
folk. 

16. couchant: crouching. 

18. Cathay: the ancient name for China. 

20. Hyson: a green tea from China, so named from the Chinese 
word meaning " flourishing spring." 

21-22. speciosa miracula: bright marvels. 



196 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

the brows of my companion. I am quick at detecting 
these summer clouds in Bridget. 

" I wish the good old times would come again," she 
said, '' when we were not quite so rich. I do not mean, 
5 that I want to be poor; but there was a middle state; " 
— so she was pleased to ramble on, — '' in which I am 
sure we were a great deal happier. A purchase is but a 
purchase, now that you have money enough and to spare. 
Formerly it used to be a triumph. When we coveted a 

10 cheap luxury (and, 0! how much ado I had to get you 
to consent in those times!) we were used to have a de- 
bate two or three days before, and to weigh the for and 
against, and think what we might spare it out of, and 
what saving we could hit upon, that should be an equiv- 

15 alent. A thing was worth buying then, when we felt 
the money that we paid for it. 

^^ Do you remember the brow^n suit, which you made 
to hang upon you, till all your friends cried shame upon 
you, it grew so threadbare, — and all because of that folio 

20 Beaumont and Fletcher, which you dragged home late 
at night from Barker's in Covent Garden? Do you re- 
member how we eyed it for weeks before we could make 
up our minds to the purchase, and had not come to a 
determination till it was near ten o'clock of the Satur- 

25 day night, when you set off from Islington, fearing you 
should be too late — and when the old bookseller with 
some grumbling opened his shop, and by the twinkling 
taper (for he was setting bedwards) lighted out the 
relic from his dusty treasures — and when you lugged 

30 it home, wishing it were twice as cumbersome — and 
when you presented it to me — and when we were ex- 
ploring the perfectness of it {collating you called it) — 



32. collating: examining critically. 



OLD CHINA 197 

and while I was repairing some of the loose leaves with 
paste, which your impatience would not suffer to be left 
till daybreak — was there no pleasure in being a poor 
man? or can those neat black clothes which you wear 
now, and are so careful to keep brushed, since we have 5 
become rich and finical, give you half the honest vanity, 
with which you flaunted it about in that overworn suit 
— your old corbeau — for four or five weeks longer than 
you should have done, to pacify your conscience for the 
mighty sum of fifteen — or sixteen shillings was it? — a 10 
great affair we thought it then — which you had lavished 
on the old folio. Now you can afford to buy any book 
that pleases you, but I do not see that you ever bring 
me home any nice old purchases now. 

'' When you came home with twenty apologies for lay- 15 
ing out a less number of shillings upon that print after 
Leonardo, which we christened the ^ Lady Blanche ' ; 
when you looked at the purchase, and thought of the 
money — and thought of the money, and looked again at 
the picture — was there no pleasure in being a poor man ? 20 
Now, you have nothing to do but to walk into Colnaghi^s, 
and buy a wilderness of Leonardos. Yet do you? 

^' Then, do you remember our pleasant walks to En- 
field, and Potter's Bar, and Waltham, when we had a 
holiday — holidays, and all other fun, are gone, now we 25 
are rich — and the little hand-basket in which I used to 
deposit our day's fare of savoury cold lamb and salad — 
and how you would pry about at noontide for some 



6. finical: excessively fastidious. 

8. corbeau: French for raven; probably here referring to the 
shiny, worn appearance of the old coat. 

17. Leonardo. See note on page 263. 

22. a wilderness of Leonardos. Cf. Shylock's reference to " a 
wilderness of monkeys," — '' Merchant of Venice," III, i, 127-128. 



198 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

decent house, where we might go in, and produce our 
store — only paying for the ale that you must call for — 
and speculate upon the looks of the landlady, and 
whether she was likely to allow us a table-cloth — and 
5 wish for such another honest hostess, as Izaak Walton 
has described many a one on the pleasant banks of the 
Lea, when he went a-fishing — and sometimes they would 
prove obliging enough, and sometimes they would look 
grudgingly upon us — but we had cheerful looks still for 

10 one another, and would eat our plain food savourily, 
scarcely grudging Piscator his Trout Hall? Now, when 
we go out a day's pleasuring, which is seldom moreover, 
we ride part of the way — and go into a fine inn, and 
order the best of dinners, never debating the expense — 

15 which, after all, never has half the relish of those chance 
country snaps, when we were at the mercy of uncertain 
usage, and a precarious welcome. 

" You are too proud to see a play anywhere now but 
in the pit. Do you remember where it was we used to 

20 sit, when we saw the Battle of Hexham, and the Sur- 
render of Calais, and Bannister and Mrs. Bland in the 
Children in the Wood — when we squeezed out our shil- 
lings a-piece to sit three or four times in a season in the 
one-shilling gallery — where you felt all the time that 

25 you ought not to have brought me — and more strongly 
I felt obligation to you for having brought me — and the 



5. Izaak Walton. See note on page 254. 

11. grudging Piscator his Trout Hall: Piscator, the fisherman 
in " The Complete Angler/* who built a fishing-house on the bank 
of a famous trout stream. 

20-21. Battle of Hexham, and the Surrender of Calais: two 
plays by Colman the Younger. 

22. Children in the Wood: a play by Thomas Morton, a favorite 
of Lamb's. 



OLD CHINA 199 

pleasure was the better for a little shame — and when 
the curtain drew up, what cared we for our place in the 
house, or what mattered it where we were sitting, when 
our thoughts were with Rosalind in Arden, or with Viola 
at the Court of Illyria ? You used to say, that the gal- 5 
lery was the best place of all for enjoying a play socially 
— that the relish of such exhibitions must be in propor- 
tion to the infrequency of going — that the company we 
met there, not being in general readers of plays, were 
obliged to attend the more, and did attend, to what was 10 
going on, on the stage — because a word lost would have 
been a chasm, which it was impossible for them to fill 
up. With such reflections we consoled our pride then 
— and I appeal to you, whether, as a woman, I met gen- 
erally with less attention and accommodation, than I 15 
have done since in more expensive situations in the 
house? The getting in indeed, and the crowding up 
those inconvenient staircases, was bad enough, — but 
there was still a law of civility to women recognized to 
quite as great an extent as we ever found in the other 20 
passages — and how a little difficulty overcome height- 
ened the snug seat, and the play afterwards! Now we 
can only pay our money, and walk in. You cannot see, 
you say, in the galleries now. I am sure we saw, and 
heard too, well enough then — but sight, and all, I think, 25 
is gone with our poverty. 

'' There was pleasure in eating strawberries, before 
they became quite common — in the first dish of peas, 
while they were yet dear — to have them for a nice sup- 
per, a treat. What treat can we have now ? If we were 30 
to treat ourselves now — that is, to have dainties a little 



4. Rosalind in Arden. Rosalind's romance is laid in the forest 
of Arden in " As You Like It." 
4-5. Viola at the Court of Illyria: " Twelfth Night." 



200 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

above our means, it would be selfish and wicked. It is 
the very little more that we allow ourselves beyond what 
the actual poor can get at, that makes what I call a 
treat — when two people living together, as we have done, 
5 now and then indulge themselves in a cheap luxury, 
which both like; while each apologizes, and is willing 
to take both halves of the blame to his single share. I 
see no harm in people making much of themselves in 
that sense of the word. It may give them a hint how to 

10 make much of others. But now — what I mean by the 
word — we never do make much of ourselves. None but 
the poor can do it. I do not mean the veriest poor of 
all, but persons as we w^ere, just above poverty. 

^^ I know what you were going to say, that it is 

15 mighty pleasant at the end of the year to make all meet 
— and much ado we used to have every Thirty-first 
Night of December to account for our exceedings — many 
a long face did you make over your puzzled accounts, 
and in contriving to make it out how we had spent so 

20 much — or that w^e had not spent so much — or that it 
was impossible we should spend so much next year — 
and still we found our slender capital decreasing — but 
then, betwixt ways, and projects, and compromises of 
one sort or another, and talk of curtailing this charge, 

25 and doing without that for the future — and the hope 
that youth brings, and laughing spirits (in which you 
were never poor till now), we pocketed up our loss, and 
in conclusion, with ' lusty brimmers ' (as you used to 
quote it out of hearty cheerful Mr, Cotton, as you called 

30 him), we used to welcome in the ' coming guest.' Now 
we have no reckoning at all at the end of the old year — 



28. "lusty brimmers." See poem quoted on pages 39-40; also 
note on Cotton, page 256. 



OLD CHINA 201 

no flattering promises about the new year doing better 
for us/' 

Bridget is so sparing of her speech on most occasions, 
that when she gets into a rhetorical vein, I am careful 
how I interrupt it. I could not help, however, smiling at 5 
the phantom of wealth which her dear imagination had 
conjured up out of a clear income of poor — hundred 
pounds a year. ^^ It is true we were happier when we 
were poorer, but we were also younger, my cousin. I 
am afraid we must put up with the excess, for if we 10 
were to shake the superflux into the sea, we should not 
much mend ourselves. That w^e had much to struggle 
with, as we grew up together, we have reason to be most 
thankful. It strengthened, and knit our compact closer. 
We could never have been wiiat we have been to each 15 
other, if we had always had the sufficiency which you 
now complain of. The resisting power — those natural 
dilations of the youthful spirit, which circumstances 
cannot straiten — with us are long since passed away. 
Competence to age is supplementary youth ; a sorry sup- 20 
plement indeed, but I fear the best that is to be had. 
We must ride where we formerly walked : live better 
and lie softer — and shall be wise to do so — than we had 
means to do in those good old days you speak of. Yet 
could those days return — could you and I once more 25 
walk our thirty miles a-day — could Bannister and Mrs. 
Bland again be young, and you and I be young to see 
them — could the good old one-shilling gallery days re- 
turn — they are dreams, my cousin, now — but could you 
and I at this moment, instead of this quiet argument, 30 
by our well-carpeted fireside, sitting on this luxurious 

11. superflux: superfluity; excess. 

20 ff. Competence to age, etc.: sufficient money in old age is 
granted as a recompense for vanished youth. 
17 



202 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

sofa — be once more struggling up those inconvenient 
staircases, pushed about, and squeezed, and elbowed by 
the poorest rabble of poor gallery scramblers — could I 
once more hear those anxious shrieks of yours — and the 
5 delicious Thank God, we are safe, which always followed 
when the topmost stair, conquered, let in the first light 
of the whole cheerful theatre down beneath us — I know 
not the fathom line that ever touched a descent so deep 
as I would be willing to bury more wealth in than 

10 Croesus had, or the great Jew R is supposed to have, 

to purchase it. And now do just look at that merry lit- 
tle Chinese waiter holding an umbrella, big enough for 
a bed-tester, over the head of that pretty insipid half- 
Madonna-ish chit of a lady in that very blue summer- 

15 house/' 



13. bed-tester: a canopy over a bed. 



XX. POOR RELATIONS 

A POOR relation — is the most irrelevant thing in 
nature,- — a piece of impertinent correspondency, — an 
odious approximation, — a haunting conscience, — a pre- 
posterous shadow, lengthening in the noontide of your 
prosperity, — an unwelcome remembrancer, — a perpetu- 5 
ally recurring mortification, — a drain on your purse, — 
a more intolerable dun upon your pride, — a drawback 
upon success, — a rebuke to your rising, — a stain in your 
blood, — a blot on your 'scutcheon, — a rent in your gar- 
ment, — a death's head at your banquet, — Agathocles' 10 
pot, — a Mordecai in your gate, — a Lazarus at your door, 
— a lion in your path, — a frog in your chamber, — a fly 
in your ointment, — a mote in your eye, — a triumph to 
your enemy, — an apology to your friends, — the one 
thing not needful, — the hail in harvest, — the ounce of 15 
sour in a pound of sweet. 

He is known by his knock. Your heart telleth you 

*^ That is Mr. ." A rap, between familiarity and 

respect; that demands, and, at the same time, seems to 
despair of, entertainment. He entereth smiling, and — 20 
embarrassed. He holdeth out his hand to you to shake, 
and — draweth it back again. He casually looketh in 
about dinner-time — when the table is full. He offereth 
to go away, seeing you have company — but is induced 
to stay. He fiUeth a chair, and your visitor's two chil- 25 



2-3. a piece . . . approximation: bearing the family likeness 
to an impudent and hateful degree. 

203 



204 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

dren are accommodated at a side table. He never com 
eth upon open days, when your wife says with some 

complacency, " My dear, perhaps Mr. will drop in 

to-day." He remembereth birthdays — and professeth 
5 he is fortunate to have stumbled upon one. He declar- 
eth against fish, the turbot being small — yet suffereth 
himself to be importuned into a slice, against his first 
resolution. He sticketh by the port — yet will be pre- 
vailed upon to empty the remainder glass of claret, if 

10 a stranger press it upon him. He is a puzzle to the 
servants, who are fearful of being too obsequious, or not 
civil enough, to him. The guests think '^ they have 
seen him before.'' Every one speculateth upon his con- 
dition ; and the most part take him to be — a tide-waiter. 

15 He calleth you by your Christian name, to imply that 
his other is the same with your own. He is too familiar 
by half, yet you wish he had less diffidence. With half 
the familiarity he might pass for a casual dependent; 
with more boldness he would be in no danger of being 

20 taken for w^hat he is. He is too humble for a friend, yet 
taketh on him more state than befits a client. He is a 
worse guest than a country tenant, inasmuch as he bring- 
eth up no rent — yet 'tis odds, from his garb and de- 
meanour, that your guests take him for one. He is asked 

25 to make one at the whist table ; ref useth on the score of 
poverty, and — resents being left out. When the com- 
pany break up, he proffereth to go for a coach — and lets 
the servant go. He recollects your grandfather; and 
will thrust in some mean, and quite unimportant anec- 

30 dote of — the family. He knew it when it was not quite 
so flourishing as * ^ he is blest in seeing it now. ' ' He re- 



14. tide-waiter: a Customs officer who boards ships upon their 
entering port. 



POOR RELATIONS 205 

viveth past situations, to institute what he calleth — 
favourable comparisons. With a reflecting sort of con- 
gratulation, he will inquire the price of your furniture ; 
and insults you with a special commendation of your 
window-curtains. He is of opinion that the urn is the 5 
more elegant shape, but, after all, there was something 
more comfortable about the old tea-kettle — w^hich you 
must remember. He dare say you must find a great 
convenience in having a carriage of your own, and ap- 
pealeth to your lady if it is not so. Inquireth if you 10 
have had your arms done on vellum yet; and did not 
know till lately, that such-and-such had been the crest 
of the family. His memory is unseasonable; his com- 
pliments perverse; his talk a trouble; his stay pertina- 
cious; and when he goeth away, you dismiss his chair 15 
into a corner, as precipitately as possible, and feel fairly 
rid of two nuisances. 

There is a worse evil under the sun, and that is — a 
female Poor Relation. You may do something with > the 
other; you may pass him off tolerably well; but your 20 
indigent she-relative is hopeless. '' He is an old hu- 
mourist,'' you may say, '^ and affects to go threadbare. 
His circumstances are better than folks would take them 
to be. You are fond of having a Character at your 
table, and truly he is one.'' But in the indications of 25 
female poverty there can be no disguise. No woman 
dresses below herself from caprice. The truth must out 
without shuffling. '' She is plainly related to the 

L s; or what does she at their house? " She is, in 

all probability, your wife's cousin. Nine times out of 30 
ten, at least, this is the case. Her garb is something be- 
tween a gentlewoman and a beggar, yet the former evi- 
dently predominates. She is most provokingly humble, 
and ostentatiously sensible to her inferiority. He may 



206 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

require to be repressed sometimes — aliqiiando sufflam- 
inandiis erat — but there is no raising her. You send her 
soup at dinner, and she begs to be helped — after the 

gentlemen. Mr. requests the honour of taking wine 

5 with her; she hesitates between Port and Madeira, and 
chooses the former — because he does. She calls the 
servant Sir; and insists on not troubling him to hold 
her plate. The housekeeper patronizes her. The chil- 
dren's governess takes upon her to correct her, when she 

10 has mistaken the piano for a harpsichord. 

Richard Amlet, Esq., in the play, is a notable instance 
of the disadvantages, to which this chimerical notion of 
affinity constituting a claim to acquaintance, may sub- 
ject the spirit of a gentleman. A little foolish blood is 

15 all that is betwixt him and a lady with a great estate. 
His stars are perpetually crossed by the malignant ma- 
ternity of an old woman, who persists in calling him 
^' her son Dick.'' But she has wherewithal in the end 
to recompense his indignities, and float him again upon 

20 the brilliant surface, under which it had been her seem- 
ing business and pleasure all along to sink him. All 
men, besides, are not of Dick's temperament. I knew 
an Amlet in real life, who, wanting Dick's buoyancy, 
sank indeed. Poor W was of my own standing at 

25 Christ's, a fine classic, and a youth of promise. If he 
had a blemish, it was too much pride; but its quality 
was inoffensive; it was not of that sort which hardens 
the heart, and serves to keep inferiors at a distance; it 



1-2. aliquando sufiflaminandus erat: it was occasionally neces- 
sary to check him. 

12. chimerical: absurd. 

20. brilliant surface, of society. 

24. W : this is the F , or Fa veil, of the essay, " Christ's 

Hospital." See Lamb's Key under F . 



POOE KELATIONS 207 

only sought to ward off derogation from itself. It was 
the principle of self-respect carried as far as it could 
go, without infringing upon that respect, which he would 
have every one else equally maintain for himself. He 
would have you to think alike with him on this topic. 5 
Many a quarrel have I had with him, when we were 
rather older boys, and our tallness made us more ob- 
noxious to observation in the blue clothes, because I 
would not thread the alleys and blind ways of the town 
with him to elude notice, when we have been out to- lO 
gether on a holiday in the streets of this sneering and 
prying metropolis. W went, sore with these no- 
tions, to Oxford, where the dignity and sweetness of a 
scholar's life, meeting with the alloy of a humble in- 
troduction, wrought in him a passionate devotion to the 15 
place, with a profound aversion from the society. The 
servitor's gown (worse than his school array) clung to 
him with Nessian venom. He thought himself ridiculous 
in a garb, under which Latimer must have walked erect ; 
and in which Hooker, in his young days, possibly 20 
flaunted in a vein of no discommendable vanity. In the 
depth of college shades, or in his lonely chamber, the 
poor student shrunk from observation. He found shel- 
ter among books, which insult not ; and studies, that ask 
no questions of a youth's finances. He was lord of his 25 
library, and seldom cared for looking out beyond his 
domains. The healing influence of studious pursuits 
was upon him, to soothe and to abstract. He was almost 
a healthy man ; when the waywardness of his fate broke 
out against him with a second and worse malignity. 30 

The father of W had hitherto exercised the humble 

profession of house-painter at N , near Oxford. A 



7. tallness. Lamb is, of course, referring to his short stature. 



208 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

supposed interest with some of the heads of colleges had 
now induced him to take up his abode in that city, with 
the hope of being employed upon some public works 
which were talked of. From that moment I read in the 
5 countenance of the young man, the determination which 
at length tore him from academical pursuits for ever. 
To a person unacquainted w4th our Universities, the dis- 
tance between the gownsmen and the townsmen, as they 
are called — the trading part of the latter especially — 

10 is carried to an excess that would appear harsh and in- 
credible. The temperament of W 's father was dia- 
metrically the reverse of his own. Old W was a 

little, busy, cringing tradesman, who, with his son upon 
his arm, would stand bowing and scraping, cap in hand, 

15 to anything that w^ore the semblance of a gown — insen- 
sible to the winks and opener remonstrances of the 
young man, to whose chamber-fellow, or equal in stand- 
ing, perhaps, he w^as thus obsequiously and gratuitously 
ducking. Such a state of things could not last. W 

20 must change the air of Oxford or be suffocated. He 
chose the former; and let the sturdy moralist, who 
strains the point of the filial duties as high as they can 
bear, censure the dereliction; he cannot estimate the 
struggle. I stood with W , the last afternoon I ever 

25 saw him, under the eaves of his paternal dwelling. It 
was in the fine lane leading from the High Street to the 

back of * * * * college, where W kept his rooms. 

He seemed thoughtful, and more reconciled. I ventured 
to rally him — finding him in a better mood — upon a 

30 representation of the Artist Evangelist, which the old 
man, whose affairs were beginning to fiourish, had 



8. gownsmen: the university students clad in their academic 
gowns. 
30. Artist Evangelist: St. Luke, the patron saint of painters. 



POOR RELATIONS 209 

caused to be set up in a splendid sort of frame over his 
really handsome shop, either as a token of prosperity, 

or badge of gratitude to his saint. W looked up at 

the Luke, and, like Satan, '' knew his mounted sign — 
and fledc" A letter on his father's table the next morn- 5 
ing, announced that he had accepted a commission in a 
regiment about to embark for Portugal. He was among 
the first who perished before the walls of St. Sebastian. 
I do not know how, upon a subject which I began with 
treating half seriously, I should have fallen upon a re- 10 
cital so eminently painful ; but this theme of poor rela- 
tionship is replete with so much matter for tragic as 
well as comic associations, that it is difficult to keep the 
account distinct without blending. The earliest im- 
pressions which I received on this matter, are certainly 15 
not attended with anything painful, or very humiliat- 
ing, in the recalling. At my father's table (no very 
splendid one) was to be found, every Saturday, the mys- 
terious figure of an aged gentleman, clothed in neat 
black, of a sad yet comely appearance. His deportment 20 
was of the essence of gravity; his words few or none; 
and I was not to make a noise in his presence. I had 
little inclination to have done so — for my cue was to ad- 
mire in silence. A particular elbow-chair was appro- 
priated to him, which was in no case to be violated. A 25 
peculiar sort of sweet pudding, which appeared on no 
other occasion, distinguished the days of his coming. I 
used to think him a prodigiously rich man. All I could 
make out of him was, that he and my father had been 
schoolfellows a world ago at Lincoln, and that he came 30 
from the Mint. The Mint I knew to be a place where 



4-5. " knew his mounted sign," etc. : paraphrased from " Para- 
dise Lost," IV, 1013-1015. 
8. St. Sebastian. Wellington took this Spanish town in 1813. 



210 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

all the money was coined — and I thought he was the 
owner of all that money. Awful ideas of the Tower 
twined themselves about his presence. He seemed above 
human infirmities and passions. A sort of melancholy 
5 grandeur invested him. From some inexplicable doom. 
I fancied him obliged to go about in an eternal suit of 
mourning; a captive — a stately being, let out of the 
Towner on Saturdays. Often have I wondered at the 
temerity of my father, w^ho, in spite of an habitual gen- 

10 eral respect which we all in common manifested towards 
him, would venture now and then to stand up against 
him in some argument, touching their youthful days. 
The houses of the ancient city of Lincoln are divided (as 
most of my readers know) between the dwellers on the 

15 hill, and in the valley. This marked distinction formed 
an obvious division between the boys who lived above 
(however brought together in a common school) and the 
boys whose paternal residence was on the plain; a suf- 
ficient cause of hostility in the code of these young Gro- 

20 tiuses. My father had been a leading Mountaineer ; and 
would still maintain the general superiority, in skill 
and hardihood, of the Above Boys (his own faction) 
over the Below Boys (so were they called), of which 
party his contemporary had been a chieftain. Many 

25 and hot were the skirmishes on this topic — the only 
one upon which the old gentleman was ever brought out 
^and bad blood bred; even sometimes almost to the 
recommencement (so I expected) of actual hostilities. 
But my father, w^ho scorned to insist upon advantages, 

30 generally contrived to turn the conversation upon some 
adroit by-commendation of the old Minster; in the gen- 



2. Awful ideas of the Tower: the Tower of London, famous 
as a place of confinement for state prisoners. 
31. the old Minster: Lincoln cathedral. 



POOR RELATIONS 211 

eral preference of which, before all other cathedrals in 
the island, the dweller on the hill, and the plain-born, 
could meet on a conciliating level, and lay down their 
less important differences. Once only I saw the old gen- 
tleman really ruffled, and I remembered with anguish the 5 
thought that came over me : ' ' Perhaps he will never 
come here again. ' ' He had been pressed to take another 
plate of the viand, which I have already mentioned as 
the indispensable concomitant of his visits. He had re- 
fused, with a resistance amounting to rigour — when my 10 
aunt, an old Lincolnian, but who had something of this, 
in common with my cousin Bridget, that she would some- 
times press civility out of season — uttered the following 
memorable application — '^ Do take another slice, Mr. 
Billet, for you do not get pudding every day. ' ' — The old 15 
gentleman said nothing at the time — but he took occa- 
sion in the course of the evening, when some argument 
had intervened between them, to utter with an emphasis 
which chilled the company, and which chills me now as 
I write it — ^' Woman, you are superannuated.'' John 20 
Billet did not survive long after the digesting of this 
affront; but he survived long enough to assure me that 
peace was actually restored ! and, if I remember aright, 
another pudding was discreetly substituted in the place 
of that which had occasioned the offence. He died at 25 
the Mint (Anno 1781) where he had long held, what he 
accounted, a comfortable independence; and with five 
pounds, fourteen shillings, and a penny, which were 
found in his escritoire after his decease, left the world, 
blessing God that he had enough to bury him, and that 30 
he had never been obliged to any man for a sixpence. 
This was — a Poor Relation. 



10-11. my aunt. See essay, "My Relations. 



XXI. THE OLD MARGATE HOY 

I AM fond of passing my vacations (I believe I have 
said so before) at one or other of the Universities. Next 
to these my choice would fix me at some woody spot, 
such as the neighbourhood of Henley affords in abun- 
5 dance, upon the banks of my beloved Thames. But some- 
how or other my cousin contrives to wheedle me once in 
three or four seasons to a watering-place. Old attach- 
ments cling to her in spite of experience. We have been 
dull at Worthing one summer, duller at Brighton an- 

10 other, dullest at Eastbourne a third, and are at this 
moment doing dreary penance at — Hastings! — and all 
because we were happy many years ago for a brief week 
at — Margate. That was our first sea-side experiment, 
and many circumstances combined to make it the most 

15J agreeable holiday of my life. We had neither of us 
seen the sea, and we had never been from home so long 
together in company. 

Can I forget thee, thou old Margate Hoy, with thy 
weather-beaten sunburnt captain, and his rough accom- 

20 modations — ill exchanged for the foppery and fresh- 
water niceness of the modern steam-packet? To the 
winds and waves thou committedst thy goodly freight- 



1-2. See essay, " Oxford in the Vacation." 

4. Henley: midway between London and Oxford on the 
Thames. 

9-13. Worthing, Brighton, etc.: famous channel resort towns. 
212 



THE OLD MAKGATE HOY 213 

age, and didst ask no aid of magic fumes, and spells, and 
boiling cauldrons. With the gales of heaven thou went- 
est swimmingly ; or, when it was their pleasure, stoodest 
still with sailor-like patience. Thy course was natural, 
not forced, as in a hotbed; nor didst thou go poisoning 5 
the breath of ocean with sulphurous smoke — a great 
sea-chimera, chimneying and furnacing the deep; or 
liker to that fire-god parching up Scamander. 

Can I forget thy honest, yet slender crew, with their 
coy reluctant responses (yet to the suppression of any- 10 
thing like contempt) to the raw questions, which we of 
the great city would be ever and anon putting to them, 
as to the uses of this or that strange naval implement? 
'Specially can I forget thee, thou happy medium, thou 
shade of refuge between us and them, conciliating in- 15 
terpreter of their skill to our simplicity, comfortable 
ambassador between sea and land ! — whose sailor-trousers 
did not more convincingly assure thee to be an adopted 
denizen of the former, than thy white cap, and whiter 
apron over them, with thy neat-fingered practice in thy 20 
culinary vocation, bespoke thee to have been of inland 
nurture heretofore — a master cook of Eastcheap ? How 
busily didst thou ply thy multifarious occupation, cook, 
mariner, attendant, chamberlain; here, there, like an- 
other Ariel, flaming at once about all parts of the deck, 25 
yet with kindlier ministrations — not to assist the tem- 
pest, but, as if touched with a kindred sense of our in- 
firmities, to soothe the qualms which that untried motion 
might haply raise in our crude land-fancies. And when 
the o'er- washing billows drove us below deck (for it was 30 
far gone in October, and we had stiff and blowing 



1. magic fumes. Steamboats had been employed on the 
Thames less than ten years at the time this essay was written. 



214 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

weather) how did thy officious ministerings, still cater- 
ing for our comfort, with cards, and cordials, and thy 
more cordial conversation, alleviate the closeness and the 
confinement of thy else (truth to say) not very savoury, 
5 nor very inviting, little cabin ! 

With these additaments to boot, we had on board a 
fellow-passenger, whose discourse in verity might have 
beguiled a longer voyage than we meditated, and have 
made mirth and wonder abound as far as the Azores. 

10 He was a dark, Spanish complexioned young man, re- 
markably handsome, with an officer-like assurance, and 
an insuppressible volubility of assertion. He was, in 
fact, the greatest liar I had met with then, or since. He 
was none of your hesitating, half story-tellers (a most 

15 painful description of mortals) who go on sounding 
your belief, and only giving you as much as they see 
you can swallow at a time — the nibbling pickpockets of 
your patience — but one who committed downright, day- 
light depredations upon his neighbour's faith. He did 

20 not stand shivering upon the brink, but was a hearty 
thorough-paced liar, and plunged at once into the depths 
of your credulity. I partly believe, he made pretty sure 
of his company. Not many rich, not many wise, or 
learned, composed at that time the common stowage of 

25 a Margate packet. We were, I am afraid, a set of as 
unseasoned Londoners (let our enemies give it a worse 
name) as Aldermanbury, or Watling Street, at that time 
of day could have supplied. There might be an excep- 
tion or two among us, but I scorn to make any invidious 

30 distinctions among such a jolly, companionable ship's 
company, as those were whom I sailed with. Something 
too must be conceded to the Genius Loci, Had the con- 



32. Genius Loci: the spirit of the place. 



THE OLD MARGATE HOY 215 

fident fellow told us half the legends on land, which he 
favoured us with on the other element, I flatter myself 
the good sense of most of us would have revolted. But 
we were in a new world, with everything unfamiliar 
about us, and the time and place disposed us to the re- 5 
ception of any prodigious marvel whatsoever. Time has 
obliterated from my memory much of his wild f ablings; 
and the rest would appear but dull, as written, and to 
be read on shore. He had been Aide-de-camp (among 
other rare accidents and fortunes) to a Persian prince, 10 
and at one blow had stricken off the head of the King of 
Carimania on horseback. He, of course, married the 
Prince's daughter. I forget what unlucky turn in the 
politics of that court, combining with the loss of his 
consort, was the reason of his quitting Persia; but with 15 
the rapidity of a magician he transported himself, along 
with his hearers, back to England, where we still found 
him in the confidence of great ladies. There was some 
story of a Princess — Elizabeth, if I remember — having 
intrusted to his care an extraordinary casket of jewels, 20 
upon some extraordinary occasion — but as I am not cer- 
tain of the name or circumstance at this distance of time, 
I must leave it to the Royal daughters of England to 
settle the honour among themselves in private. I can- 
not call to mind half his pleasant wonders; but I per- 25 
fectly remember, that in the course of his travels he had 
seen a phoenix; and he obligingly undeceived us of the 
vulgar error, that there is but one of that species at a 
time, assuring us that they were not uncommon in some 
parts of Upper Egypt. Hitherto he had found the most 30 
implicit listeners. His dreaming fancies had transported 



19. Elizabeth: daughter of George III. 
27. phoenix. See note on page 279. 



216 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

us beyond the *^ ignorant present." But when (still 
hardying more and more in his triumphs over our sim- 
plicity) he went on to affirm that he had actually sailed 
through the legs of the Colossus at Rhodes, it really be- 
5 came necessary to make a stand. And here I must do 
justice to the good sense and intrepidity of one of our 
party, a youth, that had hitherto been one of his most 
deferential auditors, who, from his recent reading, made 
bold to assure the gentleman, that there must be some 

10 mistake, as ^^ the Colossus in question had been de- 
stroyed long since : " to whose opinion, delivered with 
all modesty, our hero was obliging enough to concede 
thus much, that ^' the figure was indeed a little dam- 
aged.'^ This was the only opposition he met with, and 

15 it did not at all seem to stagger him, for he proceeded 
with his fables, which the same youth appeared to swal- 
low with still more complacency than ever, — confirmed, 
as it were, by the extreme candour of that concession. 
With these prodigies he wheedled us on till we came in 

20 sight of the Reculvers, which one of our own company 
(having been the voyage before) immediately recogniz- 
ing, and pointing out to us, was considered by us as no 
ordinary seaman. 

All this time sat upon the edge of the deck quite a 

2S different character. It was a lad, apparently very poor, 
very infirm, and very patient. His eye was ever on the 
sea, with a smile : and, if he caught now and then some 
snatches of these wild legends, it was by accident, and 
they seemed not to concern him. The waves to him whis- 

30 pered more pleasant stories. He was as one, being with 
us, but not of us. He heard the bell of dinner ring with- 



1. " ignorant present." Cf. " Macbeth,'' I, v, 58. 
20. Reculvers: towers of the old church of Reculver, on the 
Kent side of the Thames, near its mouth. 



THE OLD MARGATE HOY 217 

out stirring ; and when some of us pulled out our private 
stores — our cold meat and our salads — he produced 
none, and seemed to want none. Only a solitary bis- 
cuit he had laid in; provision for the one or two days 
and nights, to which these vessels then were oftentimes 5 
obliged to prolong their voyage. Upon a nearer ac- 
quaintance with him, which he seemed neither to court 
nor decline, we learned that he was going to Margate, 
with the hope of being admitted into the Infirmary there 
for sea-bathing. His disease was a scrofula, which ap- 10 
peared to have eaten all over him. He expressed great 
hopes of a cure; and when we asked him, whether he 
had any friends where he was going, he replied, ^^ he 
had no friends. ' ' 

These pleasant, and some mournful passages, with the 15 
first sight of the sea, co-operating with youth, and a 
sense of holidays, and out-of-door adventure, to me that 
had been pent up in populous cities for many months 
before, — have left upon my mind the fragrance as of 
summer days gone by, bequeathing nothing but their 20 
remembrance for cold and wintry hours to chew upon. 

Will it be thought a digression (it may spare some un- 
welcome comparisons), if I endeavour to account for the 
dissatisfaction which I have heard so many persons con- 
fess to have felt (as I did myself feel in part on this 25 
occasion), at the sight of the sea for the first time? I 
think the reason usually given — referring to the inca- 
pacity of actual objects for satisfying our preconcep- 
tions of them — scarcely goes deep enough into the ques- 



3-4. biscuit: the English biscuit is the American cracker. 

15-21. Cf. "Paradise Lost/' IX, 445. The spirit of the whole 
paragraph is better reflected, however, in Keats' sonnet, " To one 
who has been long in city pent." The sonnet was published in 
1817, six years prior to the publication of this essay. 
18 



218 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

tion. Let the same person see a lion, an elephant, a 
mountain, for the first time in his life, and he shall per- 
haps feel himself a little mortified. The things do not 
fill up that space, Avhich the idea of them seemed to take 
5 up in his mind. But they have still a correspondency 
to his first notion, and in time grow up to it, so as to 
produce a very similar impression : enlarging themselves 
(if I may say so) upon familiarity. But the sea remains 
a disappointment. — Is it not, that in the latter we had 
10 expected to behold (absurdly, I grant, but, I am afraid, 
by the law of imagination unavoidably) not a definite 
object, as those wild beasts, or that mountain compass- 
able by the eye, but all the sea at once, the commen- 
surate ANTAGONIST OF THE EARTH? I do UOt Say WG 

15 tell ourselves so much, but the craving of the mind is 
to be satisfied with nothing less. I will suppose the case 
of a young person of fifteen (as I then was) knowing 
nothing of the sea, but from description. He comes 
to it for the first time — all that he has been reading of 

20 it all his life, and that the most enthusiastic part of life, 
— all he has gathered from narratives of wandering sea- 
men; what he has gained from true voyages, and what 
he cherishes as credulously from romance and poetry; 
crowding their images, and exacting strange tributes 

25 from expectation. — He thinks of the great deep, and of 
those who go down unto it ; of its thousand isles, and of 
the vast continents it washes ; of its receiving the mighty 
Plata, or Orellana, into its bosom, without disturbance, or 
sense of augmentation ; of Biscay swells, and the mariner 

30 For many a day, and many a dreadful night, 

Incessant labouring round the stormy Cape; 



28. Orellana: the old name for the Amazon River. 
30-31. From Thomson's " Seasons," " Summer," I, 1002, 



THE OLD MAKGATE HOY 219 

of fatal rocks, and the '' still-vexed Bermoothes;" of 
great whirlpools, and the water-spout; of sunken ships, 
and sumless treasures swallowed up in the unrestoring 
depths; of fishes and quaint monsters, to which all that 
is terrible on earth — 5 

Be but as bugs to frighten babes withal. 
Compared with the creatures in the sea's entral; 

of naked savages, and Juan Fernandez; of pearls, and 
shells; of coral beds, and of enchanted isles; of mer- 
maids' grots — 10 

I do not assert that in sober earnest he expects to be 
shown all these wonders at once, but he is under the 
tyranny of a mighty faculty, which haunts him with con- 
fused hints and shadows of all these; and when the 
actual object opens first upon him, seen (in tame 15 
weather too most likely) from our unromantic coasts — 
a speck, a slip of sea- water, as it shows to him — what can 
it prove but a very unsatisfying and even diminutive 
entertainment ? Or if he has come to it from the mouth 
of a river, was it much more than the river widening? 20 
and, even out of sight of land, what had he but a flat 
watery horizon about him, nothing comparable to the 
vast 'er-curtaining sky, his familiar object, seen daily 
without dread or amazement? — Who, in similar circum- 
stances, has not been tempted to exclaim with Charoba, 25 
in the poem of Gebir, — 

Is this the mighty ocean? — is this all? 

I love town, or country; but this detestable Cinque 
Port is neither. I hate these scrubbed shoots, thrusting 

1. " still- vexed Bermoothes": the ever -disturbed Bermudas. 
See " The Tempest," I, ii, 229. 

6-7. A misquoted memory from " Faerie Queen," IT, xii, 25. 
26. poem of Gebir: by Walter Savage Lander, published 1798. 



220 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

out their starved foliage from between the horrid fis- 
sures of dusty innutritious rocks; which the amateur 
calls ' ' verdure to the edge of the sea. ' ' I require woods, 
and they show me stunted coppices. I cry out for the 
5 water-brooks, and pant for fresh streams, and inland 
murmurs. I cannot stand all day on the naked beach, 
watching the capricious hues of the sea, shifting like 
the colours of a dying mullet. I am tired of looking out 
at the w^indow^s of this island-prison. I w^ould fain re- 

10 tire into the interior of my cage. While I gaze upon the 
sea, I want to be on it, over it, across it. It binds me 
in with chains, as of iron. My thoughts are abroad. I 
should not so feel in Staffordshire. There is no home 
for me here. There is no sense of home at Hastings. It 

15 is a place of fugitive resort, an heterogeneous assem- 
blage of sea-mews and stockbrokers, Amphitrites of the 
tow^n, and misses that coquet with the Ocean. If it were 
what it was in its primitive shape, and what it ought to 
have remained, a fair honest fishing-town, and no more, 

20 it w^ere something — with a few straggling fishermen's 
huts scattered about, artless as its cliffs, and with their 
materials filched from them, it were something. I could 
abide to dwell with Meschek; to assort with fisher- 
swains, and smugglers. There are, or I dream there are, 

25 many of this latter occupation here. Their faces become 
the place. I like a smuggler. He is the only honest 
thief. He robs nothing but the revenue, — an abstraction 
I never greatly cared about. I could go out with them 
in their mackerel boats, or about their less ostensible 

30 business, wdth some satisfaction. I can even tolerate 



4-5. I cry out for the water-brooks, etc. Cf. Psalm xvii, 

16. sea-mews: giills. 

23. Meschek. Cf. Psalm cxx, 5. 



THE OLD MARGATE HOY 221 

these poor victims to monotony, who from day to day 
pace along the beach, in endless progress and recurrence, 
to watch their illicit countrymen — townsfolk or breth- 
ren perchance — whistling to the sheathing and unsheath- 
ing of their cutlasses (their only solace), who under the 5 
mild name of preventive service, keep up a legitimated 
civil warfare in the deplorable absence of a foreign one, 
to show their detestation of run hollands, and zeal for 
old England. But it is the visitants from town, that 
come here to say that they have been here, with no more 10 
relish of the sea than a pond perch, or a dace might be 
supposed to have, that are my aversion. I feel like a 
foolish dace in these regions, and have as little toleration 
for myself here, as for them. What can they want here? 
if they had a true relish of the ocean, why have they 15 
brought all this land luggage with them? or why pitch 
their civilized tents in the desert? What mean these 
scanty book-rooms — marine libraries as they entitle 
them — if the sea were, as they would have us believe, 
a book '^ to read strange matter in? '' what are their 20 
foolish concert-rooms, if they come, as they would fain 
be thought to do, to listen to the music of the waves? 
All is false and hollow pretension. They come, because 
it is the fashion, and to spoil the nature of the place. 
They are mostly, as I have said, stock-brokers; but I 25 
have watched the better sort of them — now and then, 
an honest citizen (of the old stamp), in the simplicity 
of his heart, shall bring down his wife and daughters, 
to taste the sea breezes. I always know the date of their 
arrival. It is easy to see it in their countenance. A day 30 
or two they go wandering on the shingles, picking up 



1. poor victims to monotony: the revenue officers. 

8. run hollands: smuggled gin. 

20. " to read strange matter in." Cf. " Macbeth," I, v, 63-64. 



222 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB ^ 

cockle-shells, and thinking them great things; but, in a 
poor week, imagination slackens : they begin to discover 
that cockles produce no pearls, and then — then ! — if I 
could interpret for the pretty creatures (I know they 
5 have not the courage to confess it themselves) how 
gladly would they exchange their sea-side rambles for 
a Sunday walk on the green-sward of their accustomed 
Twickenham meadows! 

I would ask of one of these sea-charmed emigrants, 

10 who think they truly love the sea, with its wild usages, 
what would their feelings be, if some of the unsophis- 
ticated aborigines of this place, encouraged by their 
courteous questionings here, should venture, on the faith 
of such assured sympathy between them, to return the 

15 visit, and come up to see — London. I must imagine 
them with their fishing-tackle on their back, as we carry 
our town necessaries. What a sensation would it cause 
in Lothbury! What vehement laughter would it not 
excite among 

20 The daughters of Cheapside, and wives of Lombard Street! 

I am sure that no town-bred, or inland-born subjects, 
can feel their true and natural nourishment at these sea- 
places. Nature, where she does not mean us for 
mariners and vagabonds, bids us stay at home. The 
25 salt foam seems to nourish a spleen. I am not half so 
good-natured as by the milder waters of my natural 
river. I would exchange these sea-gulls for swans, and 
scud a swallow for ever about the banks of Thamesis. 



8. Twickenham meadows. See note on page 266. 
20. The line is inaccurately quoted from Thomas Randolph's 
"Ode to Master Anthony Stafford." 



XXII. BLAKESMOOR IN H SHIRE 

I DO not know a pleasure more affecting than to range 
at will over the deserted apartments of some fine old 
family mansion. The traces of extinct grandeur admit 
of a better passion than envy : and contemplations on 
the great and good, whom we fancy in succession to have 5 
been its inhabitants, weave for us illusions, incompatible 
with the bustle of modern occupancy, and vanities of 
foolish present aristocracy. The same difference of feel- 
ing, I think, attends us between entering an empty and 
a crowded church. In the latter it is chance but some 10 
present human frailty — an act of inattention on the 
part of some of the auditory — or a trait of affectation, 
or worse, vain-glory, on that of the preacher — puts us 
by our best thoughts, disharmonizing the place and the 
occasion. But would 'st thou know the beauty of holi- 15 
ness? — go alone on some week-day, borrowing the keys 
of good Master Sexton, traverse the cool aisles of some 
country church : think of the piety that has kneeled 
there — the congregations, old and young, that have 
found consolation there — the meek pastor — the docile 20 
parishioner. With no disturbing emotions, no cross con- 
flicting comparisons, drink in the tranquillity of the 
place, till thou thyself become as fixed and motionless 
as the marble effigies that kneel and weep around thee. 

Journeying northward lately, I could not resist going 25 
some few miles out of my road to look upon the remains 
of an old great house with which I had been impressed 

223 



224 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

in this way in infancy. I was apprised that the owner 
of it had lately pulled it down; still I had a vague no- 
tion that it could not all have perished, that so much 
solidity with magnificence could not have been crushed 
5 all at once into the mere dust and rubbish w^hich I 
found it. 

The work of ruin had proceeded with a swaft hand in- 
deed, and the demolition of a few weeks had reduced it 
to — an antiquity. 

10 I was astonished at the indistinction of everything. 
Where had stood the great gates? What bounded the 
courtyard? Whereabout did the out-houses commence? 
a few bricks only lay as representatives of that which 
was so stately and so spacious. 

15 Death does not shrink up his human victim at this 
rate. The burnt ashes of a man weigh more in their 
proportion. 

Had I seen these brick-and-mortar knaves at their 
process of destruction, at the plucking of every panel I 

20 should have felt the varlets at my heart. I should have 
cried out to them to spare a plank at least out of the 
cheerful store-room, in whose hot window-seat I used to 
sit and read Cowley, with the grass-plat before, and the 
hum and flappings of that one solitary w^asp that ever 

25 haunted it about me — it is in mine ears now, as oft as 
summer returns ; or a panel of the yellow room. 

Why, every plank and panel of that house for me had 
magic in it. The tapestried bedrooms — tapestry so 
much better than painting — not adorning merely, but 

30 peopling the wainscots — at which childhood ever and 
anon w^ould steal a look, shifting its coverlid (replaced 
as quickly) to exercise its tender courage in a mo- 



23. Cowley. See note on page 273. 



BLAKESMOOR IN H SHIRE 225 

mentary eye-encounter with those stern bright visages, 
staring reciprocally — all Ovid on the walls, in colours 
vivider than his descriptions. Actseon in mid sprout, 
with the unappeasable prudery of Diana; and the still 
more provoking, and almost culinary coolness of Dan 5 
Phoebus, eel-fashion, deliberately divesting of Marsyas. 

Then, that haunted room — in which old Mrs. Battle 
died — whereinto I have crept, but always in the daytime, 
with a passion of fear ; and a sneaking curiosity, terror- 
tainted, to hold communication with the past. — How 10 
shall they build it up again? 

It was an old deserted place, yet not so long deserted 
but that traces of the splendour of past inmates were 
everywhere apparent. Its furniture was still standing 
— even to the tarnished gilt leather battledores, and 15 
crumbling feathers of shuttlecocks in the nursery, which 
told that children had once played there. But I was a 
lonely child, and had the range at will of every apart- 
ment, knew every nook and corner, wondered and wor- 
shipped everywhere. 20 

The solitude of childhood is not so much the mother 
of thought, as it is the feeder of love, and silence, and 
admiration. So strange a passion for the place pos- 
sessed me in those years, that, though there lay — I 
shame to say how few roods distant from the mansion — 25 
half hid by trees, what I judged some romantic lake, 
such was the spell which bound me to the house, and 
such my carefulness not to pass its strict and proper 
precincts, that the idle waters lay unexplored for me ; 
and not till late in life, curiosity prevailing over elder 30 
devotion, I found, to my astonishment, a pretty brawl- 
ing brook had been the Lacus Incognitus of my infancy. 



32. Lacus Incognitus: unknown lake. 



226 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

Variegated views, extensive prospects — and those at no 
great distance from the house — I was told of such — what 
were they to me, being out of the boundaries of my 
Eden? — So far from a wish to roam, I would have 
5 drawn, methought, still closer the fences of my chosen 
prison ; and have been hemmed in by a yet securer cinc- 
ture of those excluding garden walls. I could have ex- 
claimed with that garden-loving poet — 

Bind me, ye woodbines, in your 'twines; 
10 Curl me about, ye gadding vines; 

And oh so close your circles lace. 

That I may never leave this place; 

But, lest your fetters prove too weak. 

Ere I your silken bondage break, 
15 Do you, O brambles, chain me too. 

And, courteous briars, nail me through ! ^ 

I was here as in a lonely temple. Snug firesides — the 
low-built roof — parlours ten feet by ten — frugal boards, 
and all the homeliness of home — these were the condi- 

20 tion of my birth — the wholesome soil which I was 
planted in. Yet, without impeachment to their tender- 
est lessons, I am not sorry to have had glances of some- 
thing beyond ; and to have taken, if but a peep, in child- 
hood, at the contrasting accidents of a great fortune. 

25 To have the feeling of gentility, it is not necessary to 
have been born gentle. The pride of ancestry may be 
had on cheaper terms than to be obliged to an impor- 
tunate race of ancestors; and the coatless antiquary in 

1 Marvell on Appleton House, to the Lord Fairfax. 



8. garden-loving poet. Cf. the quotation from Marvell on 
pages 105-106; also note on Marvell, page 266. 

28. coatless: having no coat of arms indicative of an old 
family. 



BLAKESMOOR IN H SHIRE 227 

his unemblazoned cell, revolving the long line of a Mow- 
bray 's or De Clifford's pedigree, at those sounding 
names may warm himself into as gay a vanity as those 
who do inherit them. The claims of birth are ideal 
merely, and what herald shall go about to strip me of 5 
an idea? Is it trenchant to their swords? can it be 
hacked off as a spur can ? or torn away like a tarnished 
garter ? 

What, else, were the families of the great to us? w^hat 
pleasure should we take in their tedious genealogies, or 10 
their capitulatory brass monuments? What to us the 
uninterrupted current of their bloods, if our own did 
not answer within us to a cognate and correspondent 
elevation ? 

Or wherefore, else, tattered and diminished 'Scutch- 15 
eon that hung upon the time-worn w^alls of thy princely 
stairs, BLxIKESmoor ! have I in childhood so oft stood 
poring upon thy mystic characters — thy emblematic 
supporters, with their prophetic '' Resurgam " — till, 
every dreg of peasantry purging off, I received into 20 
myself Very Gentility? Thou wert first in my morning 
eyes; and of nights, hast detained my steps from bed- 
ward, till it was but a step from gazing at thee to dream- 
ing on thee. 

This is the only true gentry by adoption ; the veritable 25 
change of blood, and not, as empirics have fabled, by 
transfusion. 



I. unemblazoned: having none of the display of heraldry. 
8. garter: a decorative ribbon. 

II. capitulatory brass monuments: brass tablets containing a 
capitulation, or summary, of the life or deeds of the one com- 
memorated. 

15-16. 'Scutcheon: escutcheon, the shield of heraldry. 

19. "Resurgam": the motto, "I shall arise," upon the shield. 

26. empirics: medical quacks. 



228 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

Who it was by dying that had earned the splendid 
trophy, I knew not, I inquired not ; but its fading rags, 
and colours cobweb-stained, told that its subject was of 
two centuries back. 
5 And what if my ancestor at that date was some Da- 
moetas — feeding flocks, not his own, upon the hills of 
Lincoln — did I in less earnest vindicate to myself the 
family trappings of this once proud JEgon? — repaying 
by a backward triumph the insults he might possibly 
10 have heaped in his lifetime upon my poor pastoral 
progenitor. 

If it were presumption so to speculate, the present 
owners of the mansion had least reason to complain. 
They had long forsaken the old house of their fathers 
15 for a newer trifle ; and I was left to appropriate to my- 
self what images I could pick up, to raise my fancy, or 
to soothe my vanity. 

I was the true descendent of those old W s; and 

not the present family of that name, who had fled the 
20 old waste places. 

Mine was that gallery of good old family portraits, 
which as I have gone over, giving them in fancy my own 
family name, one — and then another — would seem to 
smile, reaching forw^ard from the canvas, to recognize 
25 the new relationship ; while the rest looked grave, as it 
seemed, at the vacancy in their dwelling, and thoughts 
of fled posterity. 

That Beauty with the cool blue pastoral drapery, and 



5-8. Damoetas . . . -^gon: names of shepherds in Virgil's 
"Eclogues." 

10-11. pastoral progenitor: shepherd ancestor. 

18. W s. The name is Ward, but Lamb is, of course, re- 
ferring to the Plumers, this being another of his attempts to 
mystify the reader. 



BLAKESMOOR IN H SHIRE 229 

a lamb — that hung next the great bay window — with the 

bright yellow H shire hair, and eye of watchet hue 

— so like my Alice ! — I am persuaded she was a true 
Elia— Mildred Elia, I take it. 

Mine too, Blakesmoor, was thy noble Marble Hall, 5 
with its mosaic pavements, and its Twelve Ciesars — 
stately busts in marble — ranged round : of whose coun- 
tenances, young reader of faces as I was, the frowning 
beauty of Nero, I remember, had most of my wonder; 
but the mild Galba had my love. There they stood in 10 
the coldness of death, yet freshness of immortality. 

Mine too, thy lofty Justice Hall, with its one chair of 
authority, high-backed and wickered, once the terror of 
luckless poacher, or self -forgetful maiden — so common 
since, that bats have roosted in it. 15 

Mine too — whose else? — thy costly fruit-garden, with 
its sun-baked southern wall; the ampler pleasure-gar- 
den, rising backwards from the house in triple terraces, 
with flower-pots now of palest lead, save that a speck 
here and there, saved from the elements, bespake their 20 
pristine state to have been gilt and glittering; the ver- 
dant quarters backwarder still; and, stretching still 
beyond, in old formality, thy firry wilderness, the haunt 
of the squirrel, and the day-long murmuring w^ood- 
pigeon, with that antique image in the centre, God or 25 
Goddess I wist not; but child of Athens or old Rome 
paid never a sincerer worship to Pan or to Sylvanus 
in their native groves, than I to that fragmental 
mystery. 

Was it for this, that I kissed my childish hands too 30 
fervently in your idol w^orship, walks and windings of 



2. H shire: Hertfordshire. 

3. Alice, Winterton. 

6. Twelve Caesars, See note on page 273. 



230 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

Blakesmoor! for this, or what sin of mine, has the 
plough passed over your pleasant places? I sometimes 
think that as men, when they die, do not die all, so of 
their extinguished habitations there may be a hope — a 
germ to be revivified. 



XXIII. THE SUPERANNUATED MAN 

Sera tamen respexit 
Libertas. Virgil. 

A Clerk I was in London gay. 

O'Keefe. 

If peradventure, Reader, it has been thy lot to waste 5 
the golden years of thy life — thy shining youth — in the 
irksome confinement of an office; to have thy prison 
days prolonged through middle age down to decrepitude 
and silver hairs, without hope of release or respite; to 
have lived to forget that there are such things as holi- 10 
days, or to remember them but as the prerogatives of 
childhood; then, and then only, will you be able to ap- 
preciate my deliverance. 

It is now six-and-thirty years since I took my seat at 
the desk in Mincing Lane. Melancholy was the transi- 15 
tion at fourteen from the abundant play -time, and the 
frequently-intervening vacations of school-days, to the 
eight, nine, and sometimes ten hours' a-day attendance 
at a counting-house. But time partially reconciles us 
to anything. I gradually became content — doggedly 20 
contented, as wild animals in cages. 

It is true I had my Sundays to myself ; but Sundays, 
admirable as the institution of them is for purposes of 



1-2. Sera tamen respexit Libertas: though late, freedom re- 
garded me. From VirgiFs " Eclogues," I, 27. 

231 



232 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

worship, are for that very reason the very worst adapted 
for days of unbending and recreation.^ In particular, 
there is a gloom for me attendant upon a city Sunday, 
a weight in the air. I miss the cheerful cries of London, 
5 the music, and the ballad-singers — the buzz and stir- 
ring murmur of the streets. Those eternal bells de- 
press me. The closed shops repel me. Prints, pictures, 
all the glittering and endless succession of knacks and 
gewgaws, and ostentatiously displayed wares of trades- 

10 men, which make a week-day saunter through the less 
busy parts of the metropolis so delightful — are shut out. 
No book-stalls deliciously to idle over — no busy faces 
to recreate the idle man who contemplates them ever 
passing by — the very face of business a charm by con- 

15 trast to his temporary relaxation from it. Nothing to 
be seen but unhappy countenances — or half-happy at 
best — of emancipated 'prentices and little tradesfolks, 
with here and there a servant-maid that has got leave 
to go out, who, slaving all the week, with the habit has 

20 lost almost all the capacity of enjoying a free hour; and 
livelily expressing the hollowness of a day's pleasuring. 
The very strollers in the fields on that day look any- 
thing but comfortable. 

But besides Sundays I had a day at Easter, and a day 

25 at Christmas, with a full week in the summer to go and 

1 Our ancestors, the noble old Puritans of Cromwell's Day, 
could distinguish between a day of religious rest and a day of 
recreation; and while they exacted a rigorous abstinence from 
all amusements (even to the walking out of nurserymaids with 
their little charges in the fields) upon the Sabbath; in the lieu 
of the superstitious observance of the saints' days, which they 
abrogated, they humanely gave to the apprentices and poorer 
sort of people every alternate Thursday for a day of entire sport 
and recreation. A strain of piety and policy to be commended 
above the profane mockery of the Stuarts and their book of sports. 



THE SUPERANNUATED MAN 233 

air myself in my native fields of Hertfordshire. This 
last was a great indulgence; and the prospect of its re- 
currence, I believe, alone kept me up through the year, 
and made my durance tolerable. But when the week 
came round, did the glittering phantom of the distance 5 
keep touch with me? or rather was it not a series of 
seven uneasy days, spent in restless pursuit of pleasure, 
and a wearisome anxiety to find out how to make the 
most of them? Where was the quiet, where the prom- 
ised rest? Before I had a taste of it, it was vanished. 10 
I was at the desk again, counting upon the fifty-one 
tedious weeks that must intervene before such another 
snatch would come. Still the prospect of its coming 
threw something of an illumination upon the darker side, 
of my captivity. Without it, as I have said, I could 15 
scarcely have sustained my thraldom. 

Independently of the rigours of attendance, I have 
ever been haunted with a sense (perhaps a mere ca- 
price) of incapacity for business. This, during my lat- 
ter years, had increased to such a degree, that it was 20 
visible in all the lines of my countenance. My health 
and my good spirits flagged. I had perpetually a 
dread of some crisis, to which I should be found un- 
equal. Besides my daylight servitude, I served over 
again all night in my sleep, and would awake with ter- 25 
rors of imaginary false entries, errors in my accounts, 
and the like. I was fifty years of age, and no prospect 
of emancipation presented itself. I had grown to my 
desk, as it were; and the wood had entered into my 
soul. 30 

My fellows in the office would sometimes rally me upon 

the trouble legible in my countenance; but I did not 

know that it had raised the suspicions of any of my 

employers, when, on the 5th of last month, a day ever 

19 



234 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

to be remembered by me, L , the junior partner in 

the firm, calling me on one side, directly taxed me with 
my bad looks, and frankly inquired the cause of them. 
So taxed, I honestly made confession of my infirmity, 
5 and added that I was afraid I should eventually be 
obliged to resign his service. He spoke some words of 
course to hearten me, and there the matter rested. A 
whole week I remained labouring under the impression 
that I had acted imprudently in my disclosure; that I 

10 had foolishly given a handle against myself, and had 
been anticipating my own dismissal. A week passed in 
this manner, the most anxious one, I verily believe, 
in my whole life, when on the evening of the 12th of 
April, just as I was about quitting my desk to go home 

15 (it might be about eight o'clock) I received an awful 
summons to attend the presence of the whole assembled 
firm in the formidable back parlour. I thought, now 
my time is surely come, I have done for myself, I am 
going to be told that they have no longer occasion for 

20 me. L , I could see, smiled at the terror I was in, 

which was a little relief to me, — when to my utter as- 
tonishment B , the eldest partner, began a formal 

harangue to me on the length of my services, my very 
meritorious conduct during the whole of the time (the 

25 deuce, thought I, how did he find out that ? I protest I 
never had the confidence to think as much). He went 
on to descant on the expediency of retiring at a certain 
time of life (how my heart panted!) and asking me a 
few questions as to the amount of my own property, of 

30 which I have a little, ended with a proposal, to which 
his three partners nodded a grave assent, that I should 



1. L : Lacy. 

22. B : Boldero. 



THE SUPERANNUATED MAN 235 

accept from the house, which I had served so well, a 
pension for life to the amount of two-thirds of my accus- 
tomed salary — a magnificent offer ! I do not know what 
I answered between surprise and gratitude, but it was 
understood that I accepted their proposal, and I was 5 
told that I was free from that hour to leave their serv- 
ice. I stammered out a bow, and at just ten minutes 
after eight I went home — for ever. This noble benefit 
— gratitude forbids me to conceal their names — I owe to 
the kindness of the most munificent firm in the world — 10 
the house of Boldero, Merryweather, Bosanquet, and 
Lacy. 

Esto perpetual 

For the first day or two I felt stunned, overwhelmed. 
I could only apprehend my felicity ; I was too confused 15 
to taste it sincerely. I wandered about, thinking I was 
happy, and knowing that I was not. I was in the condi- 
tion of a prisoner in the old Bastile, suddenly let loose 
after a forty years' confinement. I could scarce trust 
myself with myself. It was like passing out of Time into 20 
Eternity — for it is a sort of Eternity for a man to have 
his Time all to himself. It seemed to me that I had more 
time on my hands than I could ever manage. From a 
poor man, poor in Time, I was suddenly lifted up into a 
vast revenue; I could see no end of my possessions; I 25 
wanted some steward, or judicious bailiff, to manage 
my estates in Time for me. And here let me caution 
persons growing old in active business, not lightly, nor 
without weighing their own resources, to forego their cus- 
tomary employment all at once, for there may be danger 30 
in it. I feel it by myself, but I know that my resources 



13. Esto perpetua: may it live forever. 



236 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

are sufficient; and now that those first giddy raptures 
have subsided, I have a quiet home-feeling of the blessed- 
ness of my condition. I am in no hurry. Having all 
holidays, I am as though I had none. If Time hung 
5 heavy upon me, I could walk it away ; but I do not walk 
all day long, as I used to do in those old transient holi- 
days, thirty miles a day, to make the most of them. If 
Time were troublesome, I could read it away, but I do 
not read in that violent measure, with which, having no 
10 Time my own but candle-light Time, I used to weary 
out my head and eyesight in bygone winters. I walk, 
read, or scribble (as now) just when the fit seizes me. 
I no longer hunt after pleasure ; I let it come to me. I 
am like the man 

15 That's born, and has his years come to him, 

In some green desert. 

^ ' Tears, ' ' you will say ! ^ ' what is this superannuated 
simpleton calculating upon? He has already told us, 
he is past fifty.'' 

20 I have indeed lived nominally fifty years, but deduct 
out of them the hours which I have lived to other people, 
and not to myself, and you will find me still a young fel- 
low. For that is the only true Time, which a man can 
properly call his own, that which he has all to himself; 

25 the rest, though in some sense he may be said to live it, 
is other people 's time, not his. The remnant of my poor 
days, long or short, is at least multiplied for me three- 
fold. My ten next years, if I stretch so far, will be as 
long as any preceding thirty. 'Tis a fair rule-of -three 

30 sum. 



15-16. That's born, etc.: somewhat altered from Middleton's 
Mayor of Queenborough," I, i, 101-103. 



THE SUPERANNUATED MAN 237 

Among the strange fantasies which beset me at the 
commencement of my freedom, and of which all traces 
are not yet gone, one was, that a vast tract of time had 
intervened since I quitted the Counting-IIouse. I could 
not conceive of it as an affair of yesterday. The part- 5 
ners, and the clerks, with whom I had for so many years, 
and for so many hours in each day of the year, been 
closely associated — being suddenly removed from them 
— they seemed as dead to me. There is a fine passage, 
which may serve to illustrate this fancy, in a Tragedy 10 
by Sir Robert Howard, speaking of a friend 's death : 

'T was but just now he went away; 

I have not since had time to shed a tear; 

And yet the distance does the same appear 

As if he had been a thousand years from me. 15 

Time takes no measure in Eternity. 

To dissipate this awkward feeling, I have been fain 
to go among them once or twice since; to visit my old 
desk-fellows — my co-brethren of the quill — that I had 
left below in the state militant. Not all the kindness 20 
with which they received me could quite restore me to 
that pleasant familiarity, which I had heretofore en- 
joyed among them. We cracked some of our old jokes, 
but methought they went off but faintly. My old desk ; 
the peg where I hung my hat, were appropriated to an- 25 
other. I knew it must be, but I could not take it kindly. 

D 1 take me, if I did not feel some remorse — beast, 

if I had not, — at quitting my old compeers, the faith- 
ful partners of my toils for six-and-thirty years, that 
smoothed for me with their jokes and conundrums the 30 



10-16. a Tragedy by Sir Robert Howard (1626-1698): ''The 
Vestal Virgin; or, The Roman Ladies," V, i. 



238 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

ruggedness of my professional road. Had it been so 
rugged then after all ? or was I a coward simply ? Well, 
it is too late to repent ; and I also know, that these sug- 
gestions are a common fallacy of the mind on such occa- 
5 sions. But my heart smote me. I had violently broken 
the bands betwixt us. It was at least not courteous. I 
shall be some time before I get quite reconciled to the 
separation. Farewell, old cronies, yet not for long, for 
again and again I will come among ye, if I shall have 

10 your leave. Farewell Ch , dry, sarcastic, and 

friendly! Do , mild, slow to move, and gentle- 
manly! PI , officious to do, and to volunteer, good 

services! — and thou, thou dreary pile, fit mansion for a 
Gresham or a Whittington of old, stately House of Mer- 

15 chants; with thy labyrinthine passages, and light-ex- 
cluding, pent-up offices, where candles for one-half the 
year supplied the place of the sun's light; unhealthy 
contributor to my w^al, stern fosterer of my living, fare- 
w^ell ! In thee remain, and not in the obscure collection 

20 of some wandering bookseller, my ' ' works ! ' ' There 

let them rest, as I do from my labours, piled on thy 

massy shelves, more MSS. in folio than ever Aquinas 

left, and full as useful ! My mantle I bequeath among ye. 

A fortnight has passed since the date of my first com- 

25 munication. At that period I was approaching to tran- 
quillity, but had not reached it. I boasted of a calm 
indeed, but it was comparative only. Something of the 
first flutter was left ; an unsettling sense of novelty ; the 
dazzle to weak eyes of unaccustomed light. I missed 

30 my old chains, forsooth, as if they had been some neces- 
sary part of my apparel. I was a poor Carthusian, from 

10. Ch : John Chambers. 

11. Do : Dodwell. 

12. PI : Plumley(?). 



THE SUPEKANNUATED M^N 239 

strict cellular discipline suddenly by some revolution 
returned upon the world. I am now as if I had never 
been other than my own master. It is natural to me to 
go where I please, to do what I please. I find myself 
at eleven o^clock in the day in Bond Street, and it seems 5 
to me that I have been sauntering there at that very 
hour for years past. I digress into Soho, to explore a 
book-stall. Methinks I have been thirty years a col- 
lector. There is nothing strange nor new in it. I find 
myself before a fine picture in a morning. Was it ever 10 
otherwise ? What is become of Fish Street Hill ? Where 
is Fenchurch Street 1 Stones of old Mincing Lane, 
which I have worn with my daily pilgrimage for six- 
and-thirty years, to the footsteps of what toil-worn clerk 
are your everlasting flints now vocal? I indent the 15 
gayer flags of Pall MalL It is 'Change time, and I am 
strangely among the Elgin marbles. It was no hyper- 
bole when I ventured to compare the change in my con- 
dition to a passing into another world. Time stands 
still in a manner to me. I have lost all distinction of 20 
season. I do not know the day of the week, or of the 
month. Each day used to be individually felt by me 
in its reference to the foreign post days; in its distance 
from, or propinquity to, the next Sunday. I had my^ 
Wednesday feelings, my Saturday nights' sensations. 25 
The genius of each day was upon me distinctly during 
the whole of it, affecting my appetite, spirits, &c. The 
phantom of the next day, with the dreary five to follow, 
sate as a load upon my poor Sabbath recreations. What 
charm has washed that Ethiop wliite ? What is gone of 30 
Black Monday? All days are the same. Sunday itself 
— that unfortunate failure of a holidav as it too often 



16. Change time: the business hours of the Royal Exchange. 



240 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

proved, what with my sense of its fugitiveness, and over- 
care to get the greatest quantity of pleasure out of it — 
is melted down into a week-day. I can spare to go to 
church now, without grudging the huge cantle which it 
5 used to seem to cut out of the holiday. I have Time for 
everything. I can visit a sick friend. I can interrupt 
the man of much occupation when he is busiest. I can in- 
sult over him with an invitation to take a day's pleasure 
with me to AVindsor this fine May-morning. It is Lu- 

10 cretian pleasure to behold the poor drudges, w^hom I 
have left behind in the world, carking and caring; like 
horses in a mill, drudging on in the same eternal round 
— and what is it all for? A man can never have too 
much Time to himself, nor too little to do. Had I a 

15 little son, I would christen him Nothing-to-Do ; he 
should do nothing. Man, I verily believe, is out of his 
element as long as he is operative. I am altogether for 
the life contemplative. Will no kindly earthquake come 
and swallow up those accursed cotton mills? Take me 

20 that lumber of a desk there, and bowl it down 

As low as to the fiends. 

I am no longer ****** ^ clerk to the Firm of 
&c. I am Retired Leisure. I am to be met with in trim 
gardens. I am already come to be known by my vacant 



4. cantle: fragment, or corner. 

9-10. Lucretian pleasure: an allusion to Lucretius' " De Re- 
rum Natura," II, in which the Roman poet speaks of the sweet- 
ness of the security of the land when beholding another amid the 
troubled waves of the sea. 

21. As low as to the fiends. Cf. "Hamlet," II, ii, 517-519. 

22 * * * * * *^ In the London Magazine appeared ''J s 

D n," and the article was signed " J. D." It is not known 

what name Lamb had in mind. 



THE SUPEKANNUATED MAN 241 

face and careless gesture, perambulating at no fixed 
pace, nor with any settled purpose. I walk about; not 
to and from. They tell me, a certain cum dignitate air, 
that has been buried so long with my other good parts, 
has begun to shoot forth in my person. I grow into gen- 5 
tility perceptibly. "When I take up a newspaper, it is 
to read the state of the opera. Opus operatuni est, I 
have done all that I came into this world to do. I have 
worked task-work, and have the rest of the day to 
myself. 10 



3. cum dignitate: with dignity. 

7. Opus operatum est: the task is finished. 



NOTES 



DEDICATION 

The dedication appeared in the collected edition of " The Es- 
says of Elia" (1823). In it Lamb :s bespeaking a tolerant judg- 
ment for his essays; expressing the hope that they will be con- 
sidered as the half-intimacies and rambling conversations of the 
after-dinner season, rather than the serious and learned contribu- 
tions of some scholar. 

9. — events: conclusions: outcomes. Cf. eventuate, eventually. 

12.— Timon. " Timon of Athens," III, vi, 95. 

13-14. — the philosopher, etc. Anaxarchus, a philosopher of 
Abdera, and friend of Alexander, offended the King of Cyprus, 
who had him pounded to death in a stone mortar. During the 
execution Anaxarchus cried, " Pound the body, xor thou dost not 
pound the soul." Lamb says to his critics-to-be, in effect, *' You 
but attack Elia, who is nobody; the real author you cannot 
reach, as he is hidden behind his pen-name." 

GENERAL NOTE 

All of the essays included in this volume first appeared in the 
London Magazine. This periodical v/as first published in January, 
1820, and continued for five years. Among its contributors were 
Keats, Procter (Barry Cornwall), Hazlitt, Hood, Lamb, and many 
other famous writers. De Quincey's " Opium Eater " and Carlyle's 
" Schiller " are among the famous pieces of literature that first 
appeared in the London. In 1823 Lamb collected into a volume 
the essays he wished to preserve. Ten years later a second series 
was published. 

Lamb borrowed the name " Elia " from a clerk in the South- 
Sea House, with whom he had worked thirty years before. He 

243 



244 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

signed the name to the first of his contributions to the London, 
the essay called " Recollections of the South-Sea House " (August, 
1820), never having consulted the rightful owner of the name 
with regard to the appropriation of it. ''I went the other day," 
Lamb writes, " (not having seen him for over a year) to laugh 
over with him at my usurpation of his name, and found him, 
alas! no more than a name, for he died of consumption eleven 
months ago, and I knew it not. So the name has fairly devolved 
to me, I think, and 'tis all he has left me." The name was origi- 
nally pronounced as though spelled " Ellia " ( and Lamb occa- 
sionally so spelled it), but custom has decreed *' Elia," with a 
long '^e." 

I. The South-Sea House 
{London Magazine, August, 1820) 

Soon after leaving Christ's Hospital in 1789, Lamb obtained 
a position in the South- Sea House, w^here John Lamb, at this 
time twenty-six years of age, was deputy accountant. Charles re 
tained his clerkship here until he was seventeen (1792), when 
he obtained the position with the East India Company. Lamb's 
peculiar power of dwelling upon and reproducing the past is here 
illustrated. The scenes and impressions of his boyhood are re- 
produced as clearly as though of yesterday. 

1: 12. — a desolation something like Balclutha's. Comhall, the 
father of Fingal, took Balclutha, a town of the Britons on the 
Clyde, and destroyed it. The resulting desolation is described in 
Ossian's poem, " Carthon," from which Lamb's allusion is para- 
phrased. For information respecting James Macpherson's au- 
thorship of the epics he ascribed to Ossian, see Encyclopaedia Bri- 
tannica. 

2: 6. — the two first monarchs of the Brunswick dynasty: 
George I (1714-27) and George II (1727-60). 

2: 16. — that famous Bubble. The South-Sea Company was es- 
tablished in 1710 or 1711, ostensibly to trade wath Spanish Amer- 
ica, whose unknown wealth caused speculators to circulate the 
wildest tales regarding the profits to be derived. Finally, the 
company promised to assume part of the public debt in return for 
a monopoly of trade with the South American colonies. The 
shares of the company sold higher and higher; other bubble 
companies organized; until, at the height of a commercial hys- 



NOTES 245 

teria that swept over all of England and much of the Continent, 
the crash came. The stock of the South- Sea Company fell rap- 
idly in value, thousands of people found themselves ruined, and 
the English ministry went out in ignominy. 

3: 12-13. — the Titan size of Vaux's superhuman plot. The 
Titans were giants, children of Heaven and Earth, who made war 
upon Olympus. Vaux: Guy Fawkes, author of the famous Gun- 
powder Plot of 1605. Lamb says that present-day frauds are as 
insignificant in comparison with the South- Sea Bubble as are mod- 
ern conspiracies when compared with the gigantic plot of Fawkes. 

3: 30. — I have no skill in figuring. Note Lamb's persistent 
determination to mystify the reader. He was, of course, a skilled 
accountant. Find other instances of this same whimsical mis- 
leading of his readers. 

4: 15. — Herculaneum: a Roman city, which, together with 
Pompeii, was buried by Vesuvius in the year 79. Excavations 
begun in the eighteenth century, and still continuing, have un- 
covered many such objects as Lamb speaks of finding in the 
old South- Sea House, buried deep under dust, as Herculaneum 
was buried under ashes from the volcano. 

4: 26. — Humourists: not as in the modern sense. This old 
word is one of the most interesting in our language. From the 
Latin humor, meaning " moisture," the word came to be applied 
to the fluids of the body, of which there were supposed to be four: 
blood, phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile. If these four humors 
were in proper ratio, the individual was thought to be normal. If 
there came to be an excess of any one of the humors, the indi- 
vidual was said to be of that particular temperament which the 
fluid was supposed to represent. Thus, a man with an excess of 
blood was said to be sanguine — full-blooded, energetic — whence 
our modern acceptation of the word sanguine, hopeful. In like 
manner, one who had an excess of phlegm was phlegmatic — 
heavy, dull; if black bile was in excess, he was said to be mel- 
ancholy; if yellow bile predominated, he was said to be choleric — 
quick-tempered. 

5: 12. — Evans, Tame, Tipp, and the others mentioned by Lamb, 
were real characters, employees of the South -Sea House, though 
Lamb would deliberately confuse the reader by the hint thrown 
out in lines 9-14 on page 13. Try to estimate the peculiar quality 
which this mystification gives to Lamb's writing. 

5: 13. — choleric complexion: irascible temperament. See note 



246 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

on humourists above. The word complexion here means tempera- 
ment; literally, as derived from the Latin, a weaving together, 
or combining of the humors. The mixture that resulted was the 
man's temperament. See " Words and their Ways in English 
Speech," p. 31. 

5: 26. — Anderton's: a coffee house in Fleet Street. For an ac- 
count of coffee houses, see Professor Baker's edition of the " De 
Coverley Papers," p. 13. 

6: IL — Thomas Pennant published in 1790, "Some Account of 
London." 

6: 14. — Rosamond's Pond: a small body of water in St. James's 
Park, filled up in 1770. "Fair Rosamond" (Jane Clifford) was 
mistress of Henry II. 

6: 14-15. — Mulberry-gardens: so named from the mulberry 
trees planted by James L The gardens are now included within 
the grounds of Buckingham Palace. 

6: 15. — the Conduit in Cheap: leaden cistern in Cheapside, 
one of the famous old streets of London. 

6; 17.— Hogarth. William Hogarth, 1697-1764, painted and 
engraved many pictures satirizing contemporary life. Lamb ad- 
mired Hogarth's work immensely, and mentions him frequently 
throughout the " Essays of Elia." In the second series of the 
" Essays " he wrote " The Genius and Character of Hogarth," 
one of his most admired pieces of criticism. Old volumes of 
Hogarth's prints can be picked up in any second-hand book store. 

6: 18-19. — worthy descendants of those heroic confessors. 
The Huguenots were again persecuted in France when Louis XIV 
revoked the Edict of Nantes in 1685. Many fled to England and 
sought refuge in the sheltering obscurities of Hog-lane, and the 
vicinity of the Seven Dials: London slums. 

7: 17-18. — unfortunate house of Derwentwater. Because of 
their adherence to the Stuarts, two earls of this house were be- 
headed. 

8: 10. — Orphean lyre. Orpheus was a mythical Greek poet 
and singer, to whom Apollo gave a lyre. With his beautiful 
music he enchanted beasts, trees, and rocks, so that they fol- 
lowed after him. 

8: 14-15. — Again Lamb's attempt to mystify the reader. Hav- 
ing inserted the parenthetical matter, he then appends the foot- 
note. The occupant of the rooms was his brother John. 

8:21. — Lord Midas: the king of Phrygia, whose touch turned 



NOTES 247 

everything to gold. Acting as judge between Pan, the god of 
shepherds, who played upon the flute, and Apollo, the god of 
music, who played the lyre, Midas declared Pan to be the better 
musician. Apollo thereupon changed his ears into those of • an 
ass. Lamb's witticism in saying " they praised his ear " is appar- 
ent, as is the inference with regard to Tipp's ability as a musical 
critic. 

11: 6-7. — Chatham and Shelburne, etc. See any school history 
of the United States for brief accounts of these men, whose names 
are associated with our struggle for independence. 

11: 16. — the Plumers of Hertfordshire. Lamb had visited the 
Plumer mansion during the life of his grandmother Field, who 
was for fifty years housekeeper of the mansion in Blakesware. 
See the essay, " Dream Children." 

12: 10. — Arcadian. Arcadia, in southern Greece, was the shep- 
herd country of the old poets, where all was supposed to be peace 
and happiness. 

12: 11. — Arden: the forest of Arden, where Shakespeare's play 
" As You Like It " is laid. For the song of Amiens, see " As You 
Like It," II, vii, 174. 

13:12. — Henry Pimpernel. See Shakespeare's "Taming of 
the Shrew," Ind, II, 95. These men are named as never having 
existed. 

II. Christ's Hospital Five-and-Thirty Years Ago 

{London Magazine, November, 1820) 

Mr. Lamb's " Works," referred to in line 1, is the edition of 
1818 (Messrs. Olliers) in which Lamb reprinted "Recollections 
of Christ's Hospital," originally published in the Gentleman^s 
Magazine, 1813. This essay was a eulogy of the old school, which 
Lamb entered as a boy of eight. 

Christ's Hospital, so called from one of the original meanings 
of the word hospital (Latin, hospes, guest; hospital, a place of 
hospitality for those in need of shelter), was founded by King 
Edward VI as a school for " the maintenance and education of 
a certain number of poor children born of citizens of London." 
Originally the school sits in Newgate Street was the monastery of 
the Franciscans (Gray Friars), whose revenues were confiscated 
in the early part of Edward's reign. The school occupied the 
site till 1902, when it was removed to Sussex. 



248 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

This " admirable charity " enrolled in Lamb^s time about seven 
hundred boys. All were dressed, as now, in the Avide-skirted blue 
gown, or coat, of Tudor times, with yellow vest, white duck knee- 
breeches, yellow stockings, and leather belt. They usually went 
hatless. For other material regarding Christ's, see L. Hunt's 
"Autobiography." 

14: 2. — my old school. It is Elia who is writing. Lamb being 
spoken of in the third person. In the early part of the essay 
Elia takes the character and voices the opinions of Samuel Tay- 
lor Coleridge, Lamb's contemporary at Christ's Hospital. The 
assumption of this character is not sustained, however, for later 
in the essay Lamb speaks of Coleridge in the third person (page 
30, line 5). 

14: 17. — present worthy sub-treasurer: Randall Norris. He is 
the R. N. referred to in the postscript to " The Old Benchers of 
the Inner Temple." 

15: 22. — good old relative. See Lamb's description of this old 
lady in the essay " My Relations," p. 71, line 13. Then compare 
the following quotation from a letter to Coleridge written in 1797 : 
" My poor old aunt, whom you have seen, the kindest, goodest 
creature to me when I was at school; who used to toddle there 
to bring me good things, when I, schoolboy like, only despised 
her for it, and used to be ashamed to see her come and sit herself 
down on the old coal-hole steps as you went into the grammar 
school, and open her apron, and bring out her bason, with some 
nice thing she had caused to be saved for me." 

17: 28. — the Lions in the Tower. The Blue-coat boys had time 
out of mind en joy eel the privilege of free admission to the menag- 
erie formerly located near the western gate of the Tower of Lon- 
don. 

18:28. — Nero (37-68 a.d.) : Roman emperor noted for his 
tyrannical cruelty. Of him it was said that he lighted his gardens 
by burning Christians soaked in oil, and that he set Rome on 
fire for the sake of seeing it burn, playing his violin while watch- 
ing the conflagration. 

19: 9. — Caligula's minion. Caligula (12-41 a.d.) was a Roman 
emperor of like character to Nero. He caused his favorite horse, 
for which he Lad provided a marble stable beautifully adorned, to 
be made consul. He afterwards worshiped the horse as a god. 

20: 3.— grand paintings "by Verrio." "For the Christ's Hos- 
pital boy feels he is no charity-boy; he feels it in the antiquity 



NOTES 249 

and regality of the foundation to which he belongs; ... in his 
stately dining-hall, hung round with pictures, by Verrio, Lely, 
and others, one of them surpassing in size and grandeur almost 
any other in the kingdom; . . . representing James the Second on 
his throne, surrounded by his courtiers (all curious portraits), 
receiving the mathematical pupils at their annual presentation, a 
custom still kept up on New Year's Day at Court." — " Recollec- 
tions of Christ's Hospital." The custom has been discontinued 
since Lamb wrote the above. 

20: 8. — harpies: in classical mythology, birds with brazen 
claws and faces of maidens. They were spoilers of feasts, and 
gluttonous eaters. (See Virgil's " ^Eneid," III.) 

20: 11. — L. has recorded the repugnance of the school to gags. 
" A boy would have blushed, as at the exposure of some heinous 
immorality, to have been detected eating that forbidden portion 
of his allowance of animal food, the whole of which, while he was 
in health, was little more than sufficient to allay his hunger." — 
*' Recollections of Christ's Hospital." 

22: 25. — Bedlam cells. Bedlam is a corruption of Bethlehem 
in the name of the ancient priory, St. Mary of Bethlehem, in 
London. This became a hospital, then an asylum for the insane; 
hence the meaning attached to the word bedlam to-day. Bedlam 
cells are little mad-house cells. 

23: Footnote.— John Howard (1726-1790) : philanthropist and 
prison reformer, saving the reverence due to Holy Paul: St. 
Paul's cathedral, where the statue of Howard is placed. 

24: 2-3. — the awful presence of the steward. The steward, 
in Lamb's time, had charge of the discipline of the school, as well 
as control oi provisions, etc. 

24: 21. — San Benito: the garb "of the same cut as that worn 
by the members of the Order of St. Benedict," in which heretics 
were clad when brought before the Spanish Inquisition. The dress 
was a yellow gown with grotesque figures painted upon it. 

25:3. — Rev. James Boyer. — In the "Recollections" Lamb 
speaks of him as " our excellent upper grammar-master," and 
bears testimony to the " unwearied assiduity with which he 
attended to the particular improvement of each of us." He 
speaks, however, of his free use of the rod. Boyer, as an excel- 
lent teacher, but a severe disciplinarian, is spoken of in much 
the same vein by Coleridge (" Biographia Literaria," I, 145, 
"Table Talk," 85), and by Leigh Hunt ("Autobiography," III). 
20 



250 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

25: 4. — Rev. Matthew Field. See Leigh Hunt's " Autobiogra- 
phy," IIL 

25: 29.— Peter Wilkins: ''The Life and Adventures of Peter 
Wilkins," a story of shipwreck and adventure by Robert Paltock, 
published about 1750. 

26: 10. — Rousseau and John Locke. Jean Jacques Rousseau 
(1712-1778), a famous French philosopher, and John Locke 
(1632-1704), an English philosopher, conceived methods of edu- 
cation which permitted the student to work along the lines of 
least resistance. 

26: 23. — Phaedrus: a freedman of the Emperor Augustus, first 
century, who translated ^sop's " Fables " into Latin verse. 

26: 30. — Helots: Spartan bondmen, who were not accorded the 
severe training which the young Spartans had to endure. Drunken 
Helots were exhibited at public feasts in order to inspire in the 
Spartan youths a disgust for drunkenness. 

27:4. — Xenophon (about 435 B.C.): Greek soldier and his- 
torian. Plato (428-347 B.C.) : famous Greek philosopher, pupil 
of Socrates. 

27: 5. — Samite: Pythagoras, the Greek philosopher of Samos, 
who made his pupils keep silence till they had listened to his 
lectures for five years. He taught the transmigration of souls. 
(Cf. "Merchant of Venice," IV, i, 130-138.) 

27: 6. — our little Goshen. Goshen was the little valley of 
peace and plenty to which Joseph sent his father and brothers 
at the time of the famine in Egypt. At the time of the plagues 
it was untroubled. (See Genesis, xlv, 10; Exodus, viii, 22, etc.) 

28: 2-5. — For Boyer's thin jests see Horace's (Quintus Hora- 
tius Flaccus) "Satires," I, vii, 33, where he puns on the word 
rex, treating it as a proper name and as the word for king. The 
other references may be found in Terence's " Andrea," V, ii, 16, 
and in his " Adelphi," III, iii, 74. 

30: 20-21. — anti-socialities of their predecessors. Boyer and 
Field were social opposites, having nothing in common. Dr. 
Trollope and Stevens, who succeeded them, were, in sharp con- 
trast, close companions. 

30: 28. — fasces: the emblem of authority carried by the lictors 
before the Roman magistrates. The emblem was a bundle of rods, 
sometimes with an ax inserted, with which malefactors were 
punished. Lamb is referring to the birch rod as being the emblem 
of the schoolmaster's authority. 



NOTES 251 

31: 13. — against Sharpe: opposed to the views of Granville 
Sharpe (1734-1818), who wrote "Remarks on the Use of the 
Definite Article in the Greek Testament." Sharpe is famous not 
for his work in philology, however, but for his work as an abo- 
litionist. 

31: 16.— John Jewell (1522-1571) and Richard Hooker 
(1554?-1600) were both learned but modest divines of the Church 
of England. Jewell has been called " The Father of English 
Protestantism." 

32: 3-4. — Cf. the lines from Matthew Prior's "Carmen Saecu- 

lare": 

" Finding some of Stuart's race 

Unhappy, pass their annals by." 

Lamb substitutes "Edward" for "Stuart" as he is referring to 
the boys of Christ's Hospital, founded by Edward VI. 

32: 5. — Come back into memory. This is one of the famous 
passages in literature referring to Coleridge. Observe that, hav- 
ing written in the person of Coleridge up to page 30, line 4, Elia 
now seems to write in his own person, speaking of Coleridge in 
the third, instead of in the first person. The whole tends to 
produce the feeling of uncertainty and mystification for which 
Lamb was always striving. 

32: 12. — Mirandula. Mirandola, a brilliant young Italian of 
the fifteenth century, was famed for his knowledge of Plato and 
the Greek philosophers. Note the aptness of Lamb's comparison. 
Jamblichus and Plotinus were Greek philosophers of about the 
fourth century after Christ, who helped to form Coleridge's 
philosophical and religious ideas. 

32: 16. — Homer (about 850 B.C.), the chief epic, and Pindar 
( about 522-442 B.C. ) , the chief lyric poet of Greece. 

32: 18.— "wit-combats." See Thomas Fuller's "Worthies of 
England " for the account of a wit-combat between Shakespeare 
and Ben Jonson. The quotation following is a paraphrase from 
the same. 

32: 20.— C. V. le G : Charles Valentine Le Grice. He and 

his brother Samuel, mentioned on page 33, line 16, were prominent 
members of the school in Lamb's day. Charles went into the 
church, Samuel into the army. As boys and as men, these two 
w^ere warm friends of Lamb's, Samuel being with Lamb for several 
days at the time Mary Lamb killed her mother. Both the brothers 
were well known as wits. 



252 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

33: 8. — Nireus formosus. Nireiis was the handsomest Greek at 
the siege of Troy, with the exception of Achilles. ( " Iliad," II, 
673.) 

III. The Two Eaces of Men 

{London Magazine, December, 1820) 

Although this essay reads like an extravagant flight of fancy, 
it was founded, like most of the others, on the experience and 
intercourse of Lamb's own life. Ealph Bigod, the prince of bor- 
rowers, Lamb knew while a writer for the Albion; while in the 
references to Coleridge, Lamb is but paying back his friend for 
numerous depredations about which he had actually complained 
in person and by letter. In one letter to Coleridge he writes: 
" You never come but you take away some folio that is part of 
my existence." 

34: 17. — Alcibiades (450?-404 b.c.) : Athenian orator, general, 
intriguer. He w^as a pupil of Socrates, who strove to keep him 
sober-minded and unspoiled; but, idolized by the Athenians be- 
cause of his beauty of person and charm of manner, he became a 
profligate and spendthrift. Falstaff is a character in Shake- 
speare's plays, " King Henry IV " and " The Merry Wives of 
Windsor." He is a fat, jolly fellow of impecunious habits, bor- 
rows of his friends, and is always in debt. Cf. *' II Henry IV," 
I, ii, 251, and II, i. Sir Richard Steele (1672-1729): founder 
and fellow-editor with Addison of the Spectator. His financial 
difficulties are well known. Macaulay in his " Essay on Addison " 
tells of his proclivity for borrowing. 

34: 18. — Brinsley: the name by which Lamb usually speaks of 
Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751-1816), the author of "The 
Rivals " and " The School for Scandal." Brilliant and admired 
in public life, in his private life he was dissipated and improvi- 
dent, and a notorious borrower. 

35: 6. — beyond Tooke: reducing the language to a simplicity 
beyond that claimed for it by Home Tooke, who maintained that 
all words originated from objects of perception. 

35: 21. — Candlemas, February 2d, the feast-day celebrating 
the purification of the virgin, is in Scotland one of the quarter 
days. Feast of Holy Michael, or Michaelmas Day, September 
29th, is one of the quarter days in England. The quarter, or 
term, days are days appointed for payments of rent, taxes, inter- 
^ est, etc. 



NOTES 253 

36: 1. — which, to that gentle warmth, etc. The sun and the 
wind contended for the cloak of the traveller. The violent north 
wind but made the traveller hug his cloak the closer; while the 
gentle rays of the warm sun caused him to lay it aside, (^sop's 
"Fables.") 

36: 16. — Ralph Bigod: John Fenwick, editor, a long-time friend 
of Lamb's. See essay, " The Praise of Chimney Sweepers." 

37: 6. — some Alexander: Alexander the Great (356-323 B.C.), 
King of Macedonia. Having conquered the known world, he is 
said to have " wept for other worlds to conquer." 

39:15-16. — Comberbatch. When Coleridge ran away from the 
university during his second year of residence, he enlisted in the 
Light Dragoons under the name of Silas Tomkyn Comberbach. 
Under this name, though carelessly misspelled, Lamb alludes to 
his friend. 

39: 20-21. — Guildhall giants: Gog and Magog, two huge wooden 
giants standing under the west window of Guildhall, the old coun- 
cil hall of London. The original figures, destroyed in the great 
fire of 1666, were replaced in 1708. 

39:22. — Opera Bonaventurae: the works of Giovanni di Fidenza 
(1221-1274), canonized as St. Bonaventura. Through the influ- 
ence of St. Francis of Assisi he became a monk of the Franciscan 
order, first securing his education at the University of Paris. 
He was made a cardinal by Pope Gregory X. In 1482 he was 
canonized. He wrote seven folio volumes, most of the work being 
sermons. His style is colored with the mj^sticism to the study 
of which he devoted a large part of his life, and breathes through- 
out the sweetness, tenderness, and purity that characterized the 
man and won for him the title of " The Seraphic Doctor." The 
style and matter of his writings made a deep impression upon 
Lamb. 

39:24-25.— Bellarmine (1524-1621) and Holy Thomas, St. 
Thomas Aquinas ( 1225?-1274) , were Italian theologians. 

40:9. — Browne on Urn Burial. Lamb's admiration for the 
work of Sir Thomas Browne (1605-1682) is shown throughout 
the essays. More than the work of any other author the " Hydrio- 
taphia" (Urn Burial) and " Religio Medici" (The Religion of 
a Physician) affected Lamb's style, his manner of thinking, and 
his standards of criticism. Browne was educated at Winchester 
School and Oxford. He afterwards travelled on the Continent, 
receiving his degree in medicine at the University of Leyden, 



254 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

Holland, in 1633. He wrote " Religio Medici " while waiting for 
practice at Halifax, England. " Urn Burial," a commentary on 
the vanity of life, based on the discovery of certain burial urns 
in Norfolk, was written in 1658. The style of both these books is 
rhythmic and harmonious — prose poetry, lacking only meter to 
make it verse. 

40:17. — Priam's refuse sons: the neglected sons of Priam. 
When Priam, King of Troy, went to beg the body of his favorite 
Hector from Achilles, who had slain him, he spoke slightingly of 
his remaining nine sons. ("Iliad," XXIV.) 

40:18-19. — Anatomy of Melancholy: a ponderous volume by 
Robert Burton (1577-1640), in which melancholy is treated from 
nearly every standpoint, physical as well as mental. Dr. Johnson 
said it was the only book that ever took him out of bed two 
hours sooner than he wished to rise. Lamb's admiration of the 
work was quite as strongly expressed. The book is a storehouse 
of quotation, authorities being cited from every realm of litera- 
ture, and sometimes at great length. Its quaint style and wide 
range of allusion made it one of Lamb's favorite volumes. Of 
Burton himself little is known. He was graduated from Oxford 
in 1614, was at once made minister of two adjoining parishes 
near Oxford, and retained these livings until he died. Despite 
the melancholy turn of his mind, he is said to have been a man 
of attractive personality, and a jolly companion. 

40:19-20. — Complete Angler: a famous book on fishing by 
Izaak Walton (1593-1683). It is discursive in character, yet 
coherent; conversational in its tone, and yet imparting much 
real information about the avocation to which Walton was so 
devoted. In addition to this work, Walton WTote a number of 
biographies, among them lives of Wotton, Donne, Hooker, and 
Herbert. 

40:21. — John Buncle: a romance by Thomas Amory, a favorite 
of Lamb's, and several times mentioned in the essays. The wid- 
ower volume is so called from its likeness to Buncle, who mar- 
ried and lost upward of a half-dozen wives, remaining, after the 
loss of one of them, four days with " eyes closed." 

41:5. — deodands. In old English law a deodand was a per- 
sonal chattel that had been instrumental in causing the death 
of a person, and was, therefore, forfeited to the crown for pious 
uses. 

41:14-15. — Margaret Newcastle (1625-1673) : Margaret Lucas, 



NOTES 255 

second wife of William Cavendish, Duke of Newcastle. She wrote 
no fewer than twenty-six plays, besides an exhaustive life of lier 
husband, volumes of poetry, etc. The Duke wrote several plays 
and a treatise on horsemanship. The union of these two remark- 
able and eccentric persons is noted for the exaggerated idea each 
had of the other's literary abilities. Walpole speaks of the 
Duchess as a " fertile pedant with an unbounded passion for 
scribbling." She was ingenious and well read, but lacking in 
genuine learning and real literary taste. The reason for her 
strong appeal to Lamb is difficult to determine. 

42:6.— Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke (1554-1628): playwright 
and poet. Selections from " Alaham " and " Mustapha," two of 
his tragedies, are contained in Lamb's " Specimens of English 
Dramatic Poets." Lamb says, " Whether we look into his plays, 
or his most passionate love-poems, we shall find all frozen and 
made rigid with intellect." For this reason he felt that Lord 
Brooke naturally w^ould not appeal to a French woman. 

42:9. — Zimmermann on Solitude: a book which Lamb pro- 
fessed greatly to admire. Johann Georg von Zimmermann 
(1728-1795) was a Swiss physician, philosopher, and moralist, 
at one time connected with the court of Frederick the Great. 
His principal work, " On Solitude," was translated into all the 
European languages. 

IV. New Year's Eve 

{London Magazine, January, 1821) 

" It was probably this paper, together with that on * Witches 
and Other Night Fears,' which so shocked the moral sense of 
Southey, and led to his lamenting publicly, in the pages of the 
Quarterly, the ' absence of a sounder religious feeling ' in the 
* Essays of Elia.' The melancholy scepticism of its strain would 
appear to have struck others at the time. A graceful and ten- 
derly remonstrative copy of verses, suggested by it, appeared in 
the London Magazine for August 1821, signed ' Olen.' Lamb no- 
ticed them in a letter to his publisher, Mr. Taylor, of July 30th: 
' You will do me injustice if you do not convey to the writer of 
these beautiful lines, which I here return to you, my sense of 
the extreme kindness which dictates them. Poor Elia (call him 
Ellia) does not pretend to so very clear revelations of a future 
state of being as * Olen ' seems gifted with. He stumbles about 



256 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

dark mountains at best; but he knows at least how to be thank- 
ful for this life, and is too thankful, indeed, for certain relation- 
ships lent him here, not to tremble for a possible resumption of 
the gift.' " — Canon Ainger. For other interesting matter regard- 
ing this singular and beautiful essay, see Ainger's " Life of Lamb," 
130-131; and for matter relating to the subsequent controversy 
with Southey, see the whole of the chapter ( VII ) . 

44:25. — Alice W n. Lamb's Key fills out the name as 

" Winterton," but even this would not help us, such is Lamb's 
love of mystification, did we not know that the reference is to 
Ann Simmons, Lamb's early love, who married Bartrum, a 
wealthy London pawnbroker. The references to her are fre- 
quent; she is the heroine of "Rosamund Gray," is the "Anna" 
referred to in the " Sonnets," and is several times mentioned in 
the " Essays." ( See " Dream Children," and also Introduction, 

p. XX.) 

48:4ff. — My household gods, etc. Observe the force of Lamb's 
way of putting it. In a letter to Coleridge, written soon after 
moving to No. 4 Inner Temple, he said : " Alas ! the household 
gods are slow to come in a new mansion. They are in their in- 
fancy to me; I do not feel them yet." 

48:6. — Lavinian shores: new lands. Cf. Virgil's " ^neid," I, 
2-3. After the sack of Troy, ^neas was driven by the gods to 
seek the Lavinian shores (the shores of Italy) and found a city. 

49:9. — Phoebus's sickly sister: Diana, the moon, often spoken 
of as the pale sister of Phoebus Apollo, the sun-god. 

49:11. — Persian: Zoroaster, who founded the sun-worship of 
Persia. 

49:20. — Friar John: Rabelais's profane monk in the romance 
" Gargantua." Whenever he slew an enemy with his favorite 
weapon, the staff of a cross, he would cry, " I deliver thee to all 
the devils in hell." 

50:18.— Mr. Cotton, Charles (1630-1687). • Although a poet, 
Cotton is best remembered as a fisherman, a friend of Izaak 
Walton's, to whose " Complete Angler " he made some additions. 
He translated Montaigne's " Essays." 

50:24. — Janus: the two-faced Latin god, worshiped as the 
sun and the moon. He was also the god of beginnings — hence 
the first month of the year is named for him — and was the guar- 
dian god of gates and doors. 

52: 20. — HelicOn: the mountain range in western Boeotia, in 



NOTES 257 

Greece, from whose snow-capped summits flowed the fountains of 
the Muses, genuine Helicon, therefore, means real poetry. 

V. A Chapter on Ears 
{London Magazine, March, 1821) 

Talfourd says : " Lamb was entirely destitute of what is com- 
monly called ' a taste for music' A few old tunes ran in his head. 
. . . But . . . usually music only confused him, and an opera 
. . . was to him a maze of sound in which he almost lost his 
wits." Several of Lamb's poems reflect this constitutional aver- 
sion to music, notably the lines to Miss Clara Novello, " The 
Gods have made me most unmusical." Lamb spoke of his own 
deficiency so often that one is tempted to believe it one of the 
contraries of his nature which he affected in order to rouse antag- 
onism. 

53:11-12. — to incur, with Defoe, that hideous disfigurement. 
Daniel Defoe (1661?-1731) , famous as the author of "Robinson 
Crusoe " and " Captain Singleton," was also the author of many 
church and political pamphlets. Because of one of these, " The 
Shortest Way with Dissenters," he was sentenced to the pillory 
for three days, besides being fined and imprisoned. That his ears 
were actually cut off, as Lamb evidently believes, and as Pope 
intimates in his lines, " Earless on high stood unabashed Defoe," 
from which Lamb quotes (line 14), has been disproved. 

57:18-19. — and strain ideas to keep pace with it. This seems 
to be the basis of Lamb's quarrel with music, for the thought is 
several times repeated. A musical idea is something Lamb cannot 
grasp; that music should embody a thought he cannot conceive. 
The fact that there is, however, the representation of a thought 
lying beneath the sounds, confuses him; and the vain effort to 
follow the thought strains his attention to the breaking point. 

59:7-8. — my good Catholic friend Nov : Vincent Novello 

(1781-1861), musical critic, composer, and organist. He was the 
father of Miss Clara Novello, m^entioned above, and of Mrs. 
Cowden Clarke, the Shakespearean editor. His son, James, 
founded the musical publishing house still in existence. 

60:5. — dolphin-seated, ride those Arions. Mythology says that 
Arion was a poet and musician, who, having won costly prizes 
in a musical contest in Sicily, was returning home to Lesbos by 
water. To save his life from the covetous sailors he threw him- 



258 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

self into the sea, whereupon the dolphins, who had been drawn 
by his music, took him upon their backs safely to shore. See the 
essay, " Witches and Other Night Fears," page 127, line 25ff. 

60:5-6.— Haydn, Joseph (1732-1809) ; Mozart, Wolfgang Ama- 
deus (1756-1791); Bach, Johann Sebastian (1685-1750); Bee- 
thoven, Ludwig von (1770-1827) : four of the greatest names from 
the long list of German-Austrian composers. Beethoven is usually 
conceded to be the greatest of all composers. If he is, the others 
rank not far behind him. 

60:17. — malleus hereticorum: hammer of the heretics. Johann 
Faber (about 1500) was so called from his vigorous opposition to 
the Reformation. 

61:5ff. — This postscript was appended to the original essay in 
the London Magazine, but was omitted from the collected edition 
of 1823. It indicates so clearly the informal, colloquial character 
of the essays, that it has been retained here. 

VI. A Quakers' Meeting 
{London Magazine, April, 1821) 

In speaking of Lamb's liking for Quaker dress and customs, 
Ainger says the sympathy is ^' so marked that it is difficult to 
believe it was not inherited, and that on one or other side of his 
parentage he had not relations with the Society of Friends." 
Lamb himself says, " I love Quaker ways, and Quaker worship. I 
venerate Quaker principles" ("Imperfect Sympathies," page 97) ; 
and his correspondence and literary work are full of allusions to 
the sect. Bernard Barton, the Quaker poet, possessed an immediate 
attraction for Lamb, and to him some of Lamb's most interesting 
letters were, written. " Hester," to whom Lamb wrote his beauti- 
ful poem, " When maidens such as Hester die," was a Quakeress. 
Lamb's own appearance, " dressed in clerkly black," partook of the 
Quaker simplicity, as usually did his demeanor. 

63:13. — Richard Fleckno, author of this apostrophe to Silence, 
was an Irish poet and dramatist of the seventeenth century. 
Lamb quotes from him in his " Specimens." 

64:8. — little-faithed self -mistrusting Ulysses. During Ulysses's 
wanderings after the fall of Troy ( as told in Homer's " Odyssey," 
XII ) , he passed by the island where the sirens dwelt. These sea- 
maidens had such power of song that they drew upon the rocks 
the ships of all sailors who heard them. Ulysses, knowing this, 



NOTES 259 

filled the ears of his sailors witli wax, and caused himself to be 
bound to the mast. Thus he heard the song of the sirens, but 
incurred none of the danger. 

65:8. — The Carthusian. This monastic order, founded in 1086, 
was bound to the use of the poorest clothing, the most meager 
fare, and to a life of unbroken solitude. Speech was forbidden, 
save when absolutely necessary. 

65:13. — (if that be probable). There are few better illustra- 
tions in the essays of Lamb's irrepressible inclination for sly and 
subtle humor. The essay is written in the most sober vein, rev- 
erential in places, despite which there must be dropped by the 
way this sly hit at woman's proverbial loquacity. 

66:9-10. — How reverend is the view, etc. "A good example 
of Lamb's habit of constructing a quotation out of his general 
recollection of a passage. The lines he had in his mind are from 
Congreve's ' Mourning Bride,' II, 1 : 

' How reverend is the face of this tall pile. 
Whose ancient pillars rear their marble heads 
To bear aloft its arched and ponderous roof. 
By its own weight made steadfast and immovable, 
Looking tranquillity.' " 

— Ainger, 

66:19-20.— Fox and Dewesbury. George Fox (1624-1690) 
was the founder of the Society of Friends ( Quakers ) . He suf- 
fered imprisonment, with many hardships, but adhered to his 
faith and succeeded in effecting an organization. William Dewes- 
bury was one of his early supporters. 

67: 1-2. — the out-cast and off-scouring of church and presby- 
tery. The Quakers were scorned, cast out, and persecuted, not 
only by the English Church but by the dissenting Presbyterians, 
then in the ascendancy. Thus they sate betwixt the fires of two 
persecutions. 

67:7.— Penn, William (1644-1715), founded the Quaker settle- 
ments in America, notably Philadelphia. He also suffered impris- 
onment for certain pamphlets attacking the church and clergy. 

67:21-22.— James Naylor (1618-1660). This Yorkshire 
Quaker became a fanatic, and, imagining he was the Christ, rode 
naked into Bristol. Upon being tortured he recanted, but re- 
mained true to his Quaker principles. 

68:8.— John Woolman (1720-1772); a New Jersey tailor, 



260 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

humble, illiterate, but the author of a work giving his own experi- 
ences as a minister of Christ which has come to be regarded as 
classic. Lamb was exceedingly fond of the book, and often recom- 
mended it to his friends. 

70:1. — faster than the Loves fled the face of Dis at Enna. 
Dives (Dis), or Pluto, the god of the lower world, had been prom- 
ised Proserpina for his wife; but her mother, Ceres, was unwill- 
ing. Pluto came upon Proserpina in the Vale of Enna, in Asia, 
and bore her off to Hades, the Cupids who were attending her 
fleeing in dismay. 

70:8. — the milder caverns of Trophonius. Trophonius, the 
builder of the temple at Delphi, was worshiped, after his death, 
as a hero, and had an oracle in a cave in Boeotia. From this cav- 
ern those who had gone to consult the oracle were said to return 
pale and awe-struck. Coventry Patmore uses the word in describ- 
ing the face of the earth after a snow-fall: 

"... and to trace 
The sense of the Trophonian pallor on her face." 

VII. My Relations 

{London Magazine, June, 1821) 

" In these two successive essays, and in that on the * Benchers 
of the Inner Temple,' Lamb draws portraits of singular interest 
to us, of his father, aunt, brother, and sister — all his near rela- 
tions with one exception. The mother's name never occurs in 
letter or published writing after the first bitterness of the calam- 
ity of September, 1796, had passed away. This was doubtless out 
of consideration for the feelings of his sister. Very noticeable is 
the frankness with which he describes the less agreeable side of 
the character of his brother John, who was still living, and appar- 
ently on quite friendly terms with Charles and Mary." — Ainger, 

71: 13-16. — I had an aunt: a sister of Lamb's father. She lived 
with the family and was said to contribute her small annuity to 
the common fund. It is of her that Lamb writes in the essay on 
" Christ's Hospital " ( see note on page 248 ) , and to her memory 
was addressed the poem, " Written on the Day of My Aunt's 
Funeral." 

71:21. — Thomas a Kempis (1380-1471) : a German monk, the 
reputed author of " De Imitatione Christi " ( Of the Imitation of 
Christ), a devotional work known in nearly every language. 



NOTES 261 

72:9. — it was in the infancy of that heresy. Lamb is referring 
to the Unitarian faith, which began to establish itself in England 
early in the eighteenth century. Unitarianism denies belief in 
the divinity of Jesus, but professes belief in one God. Coleridge's 
father was a Unitarian minister, and Coleridge himself, in early 
life, preached in Unitarian chapels, as the houses of worship of 
dissenting bodies were called in distinction to the churches of the 
Church of England. 

72:27-28. — Brother, or sister, I never had any. As Ainger 
points out. Lamb here curiously blends fact and fiction. Mary 
and John Lamb, his sister and brother, he converts into cousins, 
Bridget and James Elia. But in addition to these two and 
Charles himself, four other children had been born, none of whom 
survived early childhood. Two sisters, both of whom died in 
infancy, had been named Elizabeth, after their mother. 

73: 12. — James is an inexplicable cousin. " The mixture of the 
man of the world, dilettante, and sentimentalist — not an infre- 
quent combination — is here described with graphic power. All 
that we know of John Lamb, the ' broad, burly, jovial,' living his 
bachelor-life in chambers at the old Sea House, is supported and 
confirmed by this passage." — Ainger. With regard to John 
Lamb's sensibility to suffering in dumb animals, see Charles's 
letter to Crabb Robinson, written in 1810, vol. i, p. 323, of Ain- 
ger's edition of the " Letters." For further reference to John 
Lamb, see the Introduction, pp. xix-xxi. 

73:14ff. — the pen of Yorick, etc. Laurence Sterne (1713- 
1768) tells the story of "Tristram Shandy" in the first person 
under the name of Yorick. In the story Yorick is a clergyman 
who claims descent from the Yorick of Shakespeare's " Hamlet." 
His characterizations are broad, his humor is keen, and Tristram 
Shandy, as he describes him, has certain qualities to be found 
in J. E. 

74:24.— Charles of Sweden (1682-1718). Charles XII, the 
great heroic figure of the Swedish wars, was noted for his reck- 
less bravery and his carelessness of all hardships. He was killed 
in battle in Norway. 

74:30-31. — Cham of Tartary: an Oriental despot. The name 
was symbolical, in Elizabethan times, for pure tyranny. 

75:12. — John Murray's street: Albemarle Street, on which was 
situated the publishing house of John Murray, founder of the 
Quarterly Review, 



262 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

77:21.— Raphael: Raffaello Sanzio d'Urbino (1483-1520), an 
Italian artist, whose name has come to be the epitome of a certain 
excellence in art. Mozart, for instance, is called the " Raphael of 
Music," and there are " Flemish Raphaels " and " French Ra- 
phaels " among the painters of those respective countries. He is 
famous for his Madonnas, among which are ^' The Sistine Ma- 
donna " and " The Madonna of the Chair." 

79:8-9. — eels skinned alive. In 1810 John Lamb "wrote a 
book about humanity," which he wished his brother Charles to see 
favorably reviewed. In sending the book to Crabb Robinson for 
review Charles Lamb writes : " Don't show it to Mrs. Collier for 
she makes excellent eel soup, and the leading points of the book 
are directed against that very process." 

VIII. Mackery End, in Hertfordshire 

{London Magazine, July, 1821) 

This intimate piece of autobiography is of peculiar interest 
because it touches on the relations of brother and sister — the 
brother who gave up everything for a distressed and afflicted sis- 
ter, and the sister who was, all accounts agreeing, so remarkable 
and so individual a character that perhaps her like does not exist 
in the annals of literature. Ainger says that this essay shows us 
" the brighter and happier intervals " of their " life of dual lone- 
liness," without which that life " could hardly have been borne 
for those eight-and-thirty years. In 1805, during one of Mary 
Lamb's periodical attacks of mania, and consequent absences from 
home, Charles writes : ' I am a fool bereft of her cooperation. I 
am used to look up to her in the least and the biggest perplex- 
ities. . . . She is older, wiser, and better than I am; and all my 
wretched imperfections I cover to myself by thinking on her 
goodness.' Compare also the sonnet written by Charles, in one 
of his * lucid intervals ' when himself in confinement in 1796, 
ending with the words: 

* . . . the mighty debt of love I owe, 
Mary, to thee, my sister and my friend.' " 

84:16. — The oldest thing I remember is Mackery End. "The 
place, now further contracted into * Mackrye End,' is about a mile 
and a half from Wheathampstead, on the Luton Branch of the 
Great Northern Railway." The house itself is " a venerable old 



NOTES 263 

Jacobean mansion, and close to it a whitish farmhouse, which is 
the one occupied by Lamb's relatives, the Gladmans." Ainger 
calls attention to the " almost unique beauty of this prose idyll." 
84:23-25. — I wish that I could throw into a heap the remainder 
of our joint existences, that we might share them in equal divi- 
sion. There is an almost bitter pathos in this wish that Lamb and 
his sister might die together as they lived together, when we recall 
that Mary survived Charles thirteen years, nearly the whole of 
that time being spent in a private asylum. 



IX. Imperfect Sympathies 
{London Magazine, August, 1821) 

The original title of this essay was " Jews, Quakers, Scotch- 
men, and Other Imperfect Sympathies." The frankness with 
which Lamb here expresses himself must have cost him the good 
will of some of his friends: and some writers have affirmed that 
the caustic criticism of Lamb to which Carlyle gave vent in 
his " Reminiscences " is directly traceable to a dislike bred by 
Elia's frank criticism of the Scots. While this seems hardly pos- 
sible, it is true, nevertheless, that Carlyle illustrated in his criti- 
cism the very Scotch traits which Elia so cleverly and good- 
naturedly ridicules in this essay. 

91: Iff. — This paragraph is typical of Lamb, and will repay 
close study. Note how each new sentence adds a new figure, until, 
having piled figure on figure, he leaves the thought with you 
struck through with light from almost every conceivable angle 
of vision. The sentences are short, crisp, and clear, few of them 
presenting a new thought, but for the most part amplifying an 
idea already presented. 

92:9. — His Minerva is born in panoply. Minerva (Pallas 
Athena), the goddess of wisdom, is said to have sprung full-armed 
from the brain of Jupiter. So the ideas of the Scotchman seem 
to spring full-grown from his mind. 

94:1. — Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) : one of the great names 
of Italy. Leonardo was painter, architect, sculptor, musician, 
scientist, poet. His most famous painting is " The Last Supper." 
The print of the graceful female referred to by Lamb was a copy 
of Leonardo's " Virgin of the Rocks," now in the Louvre in Paris. 
It was presented to Lamb by Crabb Robinson in 1816. 



264 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

95:11. — Thomson, James (1700-1748) : a Scotch poet, author 
of " The Seasons " and " The Castle of Indolence." He wrote in 
English, not using the Scotch dialect, which fact. Lamb says, they 
seem to have forgotten. 

95:12.— Smollett, Tobias (1721-1771) : Scotch novelist, author 
of " Roderick Random " ( the Rory here referred to ) , " Peregrine 
Pickle," and " Humphrey Clinker " ( a great favorite with Dick- 
ens). He also wrote a history of England, beginning with the 
Revolution, at which point Hume, the Scottish philosopher and 
historian, completed his history. 

95:20. — Stonehenge: seventeen huge stones standing in Salis- 
bury plain, in \Yiltshire, England. They stand in a circle, certain 
of them being connected by slabs extending from top to top. The 
ruin is supposed to be the remnant of an old Celtic temple, per- 
haps the scene of Druidical worship. 

95:25. — Hugh of Lincoln. According to tiie version of this old 
legend found in Percy's " Reliques," young Hugh was playing ball 
with other children of Lincoln when the ball was thrown by acci- 
dent through the window of a Jew. The child was lured into the 
house and killed. His body w^as thrown down a well, but it called 
to his mother and appointed a meeting with her on the outskirts 
of the town. There she met the ghost of the child and planned 
revenge for the deed. There are many versions of the story, some 
telling of the crucifixion of the boy and of the futile attempts 
of the Jews to conceal his body. Whatever the legend, it is more 
or less certain that in 1255 seventy or more Jews of Lincoln were 
executed because of their connection with the death of a Chris- 
tian boy. See Professor Child's collection of " Old English Bal- 
lads," Percy's " Reliques," and the " Prioress's Tale " from Chau- 
cer's " Canterbury Tales." 

96:23.— B . John Braham (1774-1856) was the most 

popular tenor of his time in England. He was greatly admired 
by Lamb, who mentions him often in his correspondence. Lamb 
wrote of him after his death, " He was a rare composition of 
the Jew, the gentleman, and the angel," a description which 
was afterwards applied to Lamb himself. Lamb was dark and 
sallow, and his resemblance to the Hebrew type was often com- 
mented upon. 

96:28-32.— Shibboleth. See Judges, xii, 6. Here the word 
is given as the test of Judaism — the pass-word, as it were. He 
cannot conquer the Shibboleth means he cannot get around that 



NOTES 265 

secret and impenetrable thing that makes and keeps him a Jew, 
despite the fact tliat he has professedly become a Christian. 

97:15. — Jael slew Sisera, the captain of the opposing army, 
by driving a nail into his head while he slept. See Judges, iv. 

97:21. — Fuller, Thomas (1608-1661) : a cavalier clergyman of 
the Church of England, whose works, written at a time when 
Puritan ascendancy might have soured a churchman, reveal, not- 
withstanding, a delightful optimism. A quaint style, savoring of 
the Elizabethans, whose work he directly inherited, has imparted 
to his writings a certain charm which Lamb was quick to dis- 
cover and prompt to praise. He wrote the " Church History of 
Britain," " History of the Holy War," and the book by which 
he is best known, " Worthies of England." 

98:8. — Evelyn, John (1620-1706). His discourses on salads 
are known only to the scholars ; but his " Diary " ( second in 
interest only to Pepys') is widely known. 



X. The Old Benchers of the Inner Temple 
{London Magazine, September, 1821) 

Ainger calls this essay " one of the most varied and beautiful 
pieces of prose that English literature can boast. Eminently, 
moreover, does it show us Lamb as the product of two different 
ages — the child of the Renaissance of the sixteenth century and 
that of the nineteenth. It is as if Spenser and Wordsworth had 
laid hands of blessing on his head." In an essay " that is one 
of the masterpieces of English prose " Lamb opens for us " those 
pages of autobiography which happily abound in his writings. 
The words do more than fix places and dates. They strike the 
key in which his early life was set — and later life, hardly less. 
The genius of Lamb was surely guided into its special channel 
by the chance that the first fourteen years of his life were 
passed, as has been said, ' between cloister and cloister,' between 
the mediaeval atmosphere of the quiet Temple and that of the 
busy school of Edward VI." 

102: 1. — I was born, etc. Samuel Salt owned two sets of cham- 
bers in Crown Office Row, Temple. In one of these lived John 
Lamb, Sr., and his family, and here Charles was born; and here 
he lived until he went to Christ's Hospital at the age of seven. 

102:2. — the Temple. The group of buildings comprehensively 
21 



266 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

known as the Temple lies on the south side of Fleet Street near 
Temple Bar. For a brief account of these buildings, together 
with the uses to which they are put, see Introduction, page 
xliii-ff. 

102:8. — Spenser, Edmund (1552-1599): next to Shakespeare, 
the greatest name in English poetry of the sixteenth century. 
His principal work is " The Faerie Queen," an allegorical poem in 
six books, written in the nine verse stanza which has come to be 
known as the Spenserian. 

103:10. — Twickenham Naiades. In Greek mythology the riv- 
ers and springs were supposed to be presided over by river 
nymphs, called naiades. Twickenham (now a suburb of Rich- 
mond) is a town up the Thames. At the time of Lamb's writing 
it was " in the country," and was sufficiently unimportant for 
its trade not to pollute the Thames. Pope was called " The 
Bard of Twickenham," owing to his having resided there for 
thirty years. 

103:18. — moral inscriptions. Inscriptions (u-'ually in Latin) 
calling attention to the flight of time and the necessity for im- 
proving the moments were common on old sun-dials. A dial now 
in Lincoln's Inn is inscribed, Ex hoc momento pendet ceternitas 
(On this moment hangs eternity). 

104:24-25. — Marvell, Andrew (1620-1678): poet and states- 
man, a contemporary and one-time assistant of Milton's under 
CromwelFs Latin Secretaryship. His rural and garden poetry 
was particularl}^ admired by Lamb. Some critics aver that in 
his own time he was esteemed a greater poet than Milton himself. 
In rural poetry he easily surpasses all other minor poets of the 
Puritan Era. 

107:13. — The old benchers: the name applied to those who 
are members of the governing body of the Inns of Court. See 
Introduction, page xliv. 

107:21. — Thomas Coventry: nephew of William, fifth Earl of 
Coventry; called to the Bench 1766; died 1797. Lamb's character- 
ization of him, as of Salt and Lovel, ranks as one of the most 
perfect things of its kind in English literature. Note the peculiar 
fitness of Lamb's epithets, quadrate, massy, path-keeping, etc., 
and the happiness with which he chooses the figures to enforce 
these, page 107, line 26, page 108, lines 1-2, 5-7. Seldom has an 
individuality been so clearly and forcefully set forth in such 
brief space as in the statement that he made a solitude of chil- 



NOTES 267 

dren wherever he came, for they fled his insufferable presence, as 
they would have shunned an Elisha bear. 

108:22.— Samuel Salt: called to the Bench 1782; died 1792. 
Salt must have been well-to-do, for he kept two indoor servants 
besides the Lambs, and kept his own carriage. John Lamb, Sr., 
served Salt for more than forty years, Mrs. Lamb acting as his 
housekeeper during the same period. Salt provided for them 
generously in his will, and seems throughout to have been a con- 
siderate employer. 

109:16. — Miss Blandy. Her father opposed her marriage to 
an adventurer, a certain Captain Cranstoun. The captain gave 
her a powder which she administered to her father with fatal 
result. She was found guilty of murder, and executed at Oxford 
in 1752. 

110:13. — Susan P : Susan Pierson, sister of the Peter Pier- 
son of this essay. " By his second codicil Salt bequeathes her, as 
a mark of regard, 500 pounds; his silver inkstand; and the works 
of Pope, Swift, Addison, and Steele . . . hoping that, * by read- 
ing and reflection,' they will ^ make her life more comfortable.' 
How oddly touching this bequest seems to us, in the light thrown 
on it by Lamb's account of the relations between Salt and his 
friend's sister! What a pleasant glimpse, again, is here af- 
forded of the * spacious closet of good old English reading ' into 
which Charles and Mary were * tumbled ' at an early age." — 
Ainger. 

111:15-16. — mad Elwes breed: a family of misers. A sister 
of the head of the family actually starved herself to death. Her 
son, John Elwes, was a notorious miser. 

112:5. — Lovel. Lamb's characterization of his father is said 
to be as faithful as it is sympathetic. The resemblance to Gar- 
rick has been confirmed. 

112:7. — "flapper." In "Gulliver's Travels" the hero journeys 
to Laputa, where he discovers a race so lost in dreamy reflective- 
ness that a functionary is needed to prompt them when they are 
spoken to in order that they may reply. This attendant is called 
the flapper, since he uses an inflated bladder to strike gently the 
person whom he would recall. The allusion seems aptly chosen 
when John Lamb's relations with Salt are considered. 

112:28.— Garrick, David (1717-1779): famous English actor. 
He was a member of Dr. Johnson's literary club, and had been 
Johnson's pupil at Lichfield. As manager of the Drury Lane 



268 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

Theatre he brought out twenty-four of Shakespeare's plays, tak- 
ing the leading parts in most of them himself. 

114:11-12. — our great philanthropist: probably Thomas How- 
ard. Some critics say Thomas Clarkson, but Lamb's parenthesis 
above, coupled with his footnote on Howard (page 23) would 
seem to favor the reference here chosen. 

115:22.— Friar Bacon: Roger Bacon (1214?-1294), a Fran- 
ciscan monk possessed of great learning — so great, indeed, that to 
most of his contemporaries he appeared a magician. 

116:16-17. — Michael Angelo's Moses: a statue of heroic size, 
which represents the lawgiver as seated in a chair, holding in one 
hand the tablets of the law. His beard and hair are long, the 
latter being arranged about the temples so as to give the im- 
pression of short horns. Michael Angelo Buonarotti (1475-1504) 
is the greatest name in Italian art. Like Leonardo (see note on 
page 263), he was great as painter, poet, architect, and sculptor. 
In giving Moses horns, Michael Angelo followed the Vulgate trans- 
lation of the Bible where the Hebrew word meaning " an irradia- 
tion " was confused with a word of the same root meaning 
"horns." Vulgate: "that his face was horned"; English Bible: 
" that the skin of his face shone." 

117:18. — R. N.: Randall Norris, subtreasurer and librarian of 
the Inner Temple. He is referred to in the essay on " Christ's 
Hospital," page 14, line 17, and is mentioned in many of Lamb's 
letters. To Coleridge Lamb wrote at the time of his mother's 
death, " Mr. Norris has been more than a father to me." At the 
time of Mr. Norris's death Lamb wrote to Crabb Robinson : " In 
him I have a loss the world cannot make up. He was my friend 
and my father's friend all the life I can remember. . . . Old as 
I am waxing, in his eyes I was still the child he first knew me. 
To the last he called me Charley. I have none to call me 
Charley now." 

118:7. — Gentleman's: the Gentleman's Magazine, a famous old 
periodical, founded in 1731. Obituary notices of prominent men 
who had died during the month appeared in each issue. Silvanus 
Urban was the name of the hypothetical editor. 

118:18. — Hookers and Seldens. See note on page 251. Selden 
(1584-1654) was reputed to be one of the most learned men of 
his time, and was called " The Great Dictator of Learning to the 
English Nation." 



NOTES 269 

XI. Witches and Other Night Fears 
{London Magazine, October, 1821) 

This seemingly innocent essay, with the sentiments of which 
the most orthodox of our day would not think of linding fault, 
was the cause of Lamb's controversy with Southey, a literary quar- 
rel which temporarily estranged these lifelong friends. Southey, 
in reviewing a French theological work, took occasion to criticise 
the state of religious belief in England. He maintained there 
was an undercurrent of scepticism greater than many supposed, 
for the reason that the unbelievers w^ere not always courageous 
enough to express their real feelings. These unbelievers may have 
ceased to hope, but " they have not been able to divest themselves 
of fear." Whereupon he mentions " Elia's Essays," " a book that 
wants only a sounder religious feeling to be as delightful as it is 
original." He then cites " Witches and Other Xight Fears," and 
points out the case of " dear little T. H." to indicate the lack of 
religious training to be found in Leigh Hunt's home. This seems 
a far cry, and so Lamb must have thought it, for he replied to 
Southey in a long open letter published in the London, vigorously 
defending Hunt and himself. Southey, the next month, wrote 
Lamb a letter " full of affection and sorrow," and the threatened 
quarrel was averted. For a more extended account of the incident 
see Ainger's " Life of Lamb," Chapter VII, and Talfourd, Chap- 
ter XIII. 

119:12-13. — That maidens pined away. It was said of cer- 
tain witches that they made waxen images of their victims, and 
melted them slowly before a fire. As the image melted, the vic- 
tim wasted away. Rossetti's dramatic poem, " Sister Helen," 
centers about this superstition. For reference to the other phe- 
nomena mentioned, all of which are common to witchcraft, see 
" Sir Roger de Coverley Papers," " The Village Witch." 

121:6. — Guyon. Sir Guyon, the personification of temperance, 
and his fights with the different kinds of intemperance, form the 
subject-matter of Book II of Spenser's *' Faerie Queen." For his 
fight with the Fiend, see Book II, vii, 27. Mammon, representing 
the intemperance of worldly wealth, tries to tempt Sir Guyon with 
a hoard of glittering tseasure, but Guyon resists the glorious bait. 

121:15.— ^tackhouse, Thomas (1681-1752). His "History of 
the Bible " was published in 1737. 

122:16. — that slain monster in Spenser. The adventures of St. 



270 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

George (the Red Cross Knight), symbolizing the struggle of holi- 
ness witJi sin, occupy Book I of Spenser's " Faerie Queen." When 
the knight slays the dragon Error, young dragons (errors) come 
forth from the womb of the slain monster. 

125:11-12. — Gorgons: three frightful sisters of Greek mythol- 
ogy. Instead of hair, their heads were covered with serpents, and 
they had wings, and brazen claws. The head of Medusa, one of 
the sisters, was so frightful that everyone who looked upon her 
was changed to stone. Hydras. The hydra was the many-headed 
serpent killed by Hercules. As fast as one head was hewn off, 
two grew in its place, until he applied a firebrand to prevent their 
growth. Chimaeras. The chimaera was a fire-breathing monster 
killed by Bellerophon. The fore part of its body was that of a 
lion, the hind part of a dragon, and the middle of a goat. Celaeno 
was one of the Harpies, disgusting monsters, having bodies of 
vultures, with long claws, and heads of maidens. They are the 
spoilers of tables and banquets. Virgil gives an account of them 
in the " ^neid," III, 247ff. 

125:25. — All the . . . devils in Dante. The reference is to the 
description of hell in Dante's " Inferno." Dante Alighieri ( 1265- 
1321), the greatest Italian poet, and one of the three great epic 
writers of the world, is famous for his " Divina Commedia." This 
epic, the first poem of note ever written in Italian, is divided into 
three parts: "Inferno" (1300), " Purgatorio " (1308), " Para- 
disio" (1311). 

126:18. — A stud of them: a collection of them. Lamb's use of 
the word is a play on the word mare in nightmare, based on a 
common misinterpretation of the derivation of the word. Mare is 
from the Anglo-Saxon mar-a, meaning incubus, or crushing weight. 

127:12-13. — Kubla Khan, and Abyssinian maids, and songs of 
Abara. Coleridge's uncompleted poem " Kubla Khan " was writ- 
ten after a vivid dream, and remained incomplete because Cole- 
ridge was interrupted in the midst of his writing, and forgot the 
other images of his vision when he again addressed himself to the 
task of writing it down. The stanzas from which Lamb's quota- 
tions are made follow: 

"In Xanadu did Kubla Khan 

A stately pleasure-dome decree; 
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran 
Through caverns measureless to man 
Down to a sunless sea. 



NOTES 271 

It was a miracle of rare device, 
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice! 
A damsel with a dulcimer 
In a vision once I saw; 
It was an Abyssinian maid, 
And on her dulcimer she played, 
Singing of Mount Abora." 

127:16flF. — Barry Cornwall has his tritons, etc. The reference 
is to the poem " A Vision," which the author says is '' little more 
than the recollection of a dream." Barry Cornwall: the pen-name 
of Bryan Waller Procter (1787-1874), poet, and biographer of 
Lamb, tritons: mermen attendant upon Neptune, the god of the 
ocean, nereids: sea-nymphs. 

128:3. — Ino Leucothea. Ino was the wife of the king of Orcho- 
menus. The gods sent madness upon him because of his mar- 
riage, and he threatened the life of his wife; whereupon she 
leaped into the sea and was changed into Leucothea, the sea- 
goddess. 

XII. Grace Before Meat 

{London Magazine, November, 1821) 

Lamb says of this paper, in the letter defending himself 
against Southey, previously referred to : "I have endeavored there 
to rescue a voluntary duty — good in place, but never, as I re- 
member, literally commanded — from the charge of an undecent 
formality. Rightly taken, sir, that paper w^as not against graces, 
but want of grace; not against ceremony, but the carelessness and 
slovenliness so often observed in the performance of it." 

130:6. — Utopian. Utopia (Greek, "nowhere") is the name 
of Sir Thomas More's ideal commonwealth. Utopian there- 
fore means ideal, visionary. Sir Thomas More (1487-1535) 
published the "Utopia" in 1516, depicting therein an island 
where everything was perfect — laws, morals, institutions, etc. He 
draws sharp contrasts between Utopia and existing conditions. 
Rabelaesian: an adjective coined by Lamb from the name Fran- 
cois Rabelais (1483-1553), a Benedictine monk, whose stories are 
noted for their broad humor, biting satire, and farcical incidents. 
The adjective Rabelaesian, therefore, would mean jovial, devil-may- 
care, or unlicensed. 



272 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

133:19. — Heliogabalus (or Elagobalus) : a Roman emperor of 
the third century, noted for his gluttony and licentiousness, for 
which his name has become a synonym. 

136:7. — author of the Rambler. Dr. Samuel Johnson (1709- 
1784) was the dominant figure in English literature during his 
lifetime. He published an English dictionary, '' The Lives of the 
Poets," several periodicals, among them the Rambler; and is him- 
self the subject of the most famous biography in English, " Bos- 
well's Life of Johnson." In person Dr. Johnson was large and 
uncouth; in manners, blunt and impetuous. Macaulay, in his 
" Essay on Johnson," says of his behavior at table : " The sight 
of food affected him as it affects wild beasts and birds of prey. 
. . . Whenever he was so fortunate as to have near him a hare 
that had been kept too long, or a meat pie made with rancid but- 
ter, he gorged himself with such violence that his veins swelled, 
and the moisture broke out on his forehead." 

136:29. — Hog's Norton: a village in Oxfordshire. An old 
proverb has it that at Hog's Norton pigs play on the organ, to 
which Lamb doubtless refers when he speaks of those better be- 
j&tting organs. Graces are more dissonant at rich men's tables 
than the strains of an organ played upon by pigs. 

138:1. — Lucian: a Greek satirist of the second century. His 
most important writings are his " Dialogues," which exhibit the 
widest possible range of temperament, from the most serious vein 
to that of the broadest buffoonery. 

XIII. Dream-Children: A Eeverie 

{London Magazine, January, 1822) 

This essay is considered by many to be Lamb's finest piece of 
prose. As a piece of intimate self-revelation it uncovers the 
depths of Lamb's heart as perhaps no other published work has 
done. It was written shortly after the death of John Lamb, who 
died in October, 1821. Lamb had small cause enough either to 
love or greatly to respect his careless relative (see essay "My 
Relations " and notes ) ; but he seems to have had a tender feeling 
for John, and his death brought a sense of loneliness and depres- 
sion. To Wordsworth he wrote, five months after John's death, 
of " a certain deadness to everything, which I think I may date 
from poor John's loss." As far as family ties were concerned, the 
life of Charles and Mary Lamb was more than ever one of " dual 



NOTES 273 

loneliness," for they had but themselves out of all the number 
who had lived in the Temple chambers forty years before. 

140:6. — great-grandmother Field. Mary Field, Lamb's grand- 
mother, was for fifty years housekeeper for the Plumers at Blakes- 
ware. (See note on page 283.) She died of cancer in 1792. 
Lamb has perpetuated her memory in his poem, '' The Grandame." 

140:11-12.— The Children in the Wood. This well-known 
story is actually associated with Norfolk, which fact, perhaps, 
induced Lamb to choose that locality in preference to giving the 
real location of the Plumer mansion. For the ballad of " The 
Babes in the Wood " see Percy's " Reliques " or Professor Child's 
collection of " English and Scottish Popular Ballads." 

142:12. — the twelve Caesars: the Roman emperors from Julius 
Caesar to Domitian. ** I could tell of an old marble hall, with 
Hogarth's prints, and the Roman Caesars in marble hung round." 
• — Lamh to S out hey. 

143:29. — he became lame-footed too. If Charles was ever 
" lame-footed " it was a temporary matter. John Lamb, how- 
ever, was lame, the occasion being, according to Lucas, the fall 
of a stone in the year 1796. That they ever took off his limb is 
probably untrue. 

145:5. — Lethe: a river of the lower world from which the 
shades drank, thus obtaining forgetfulness of the past. 

XIV. Distant Correspondents 
{London Magazine, March, 1822) 

The germ of this essay, full of Lamb's quaint foolery, is to 
be found in a letter to Barron Field, the B. F. of the sub-title, 
dated August 31, 1817. The letter is printed by Talfourd in 
Chapter X. In Ainger's Edition it will be found on page 4 of 
Volume II; in Lucas's Edition on page 500 of Volume I. B. F., 
Barron Field (1786-1846), was an English barrister with whom 
Lamb became acquainted through a brother who was a clerk 
in the India House. Field was a man of literary taste and some 
journalistic ability, writing for Hunt's Reflector and publishing 
a volume or two after going to Australia. In 1816 he was 
appointed Justice of the Supreme Court of New South Wales, 
remaining in this position for eight years. 

146: 13.— Cowley's Post-Angel. From the "Hymn to Light," 
stanza 6 : 



274 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

" Let a post-angel start with thee 
And thou the goal of earth shalt reach as soon as he." 

Cowley (1618-1667) was a poet and essayist who enjoyed a high 
reputation during his lifetime. Unlike his contemporary, Mil- 
ton, he was a Royalist. 

146:21-147:3. — that interesting theosophist — Plato's man. A 
theosophist is one who claims direct revelation from God with re- 
gard to Himself. The theosophist here referred to is the moon. 
Hallward and Hill, with painstaking scholarship, have traced the 
allusion to one of Milton's Latin poems, that '' On the Platonic 
Idea " ( see Cowper's translation, Globe Edition, page 450 ) , where 
Plato's man, the original man as he first existed in the mind of 
God, is identified with the man in the moon. This clearly ex- 
plains Lamb's calling the moon both a theosophist and Plato's 
man. 

149:22-23.— the epoch of . . . (Habakkuk) falling in with . . . 
the time of . . . (Daniel). The King James Bible places the date 
of Habakkuk's prophecy as 626 B.C., while the events of Daniel's 
prophetic experience began in 607 B.C. Thus the former ante- 
dated the latter by nineteen years. 

149:30. — Lord C: Thomas Pitt, second Lord Camelford 
(1775-1804). He was killed in a duel. It is a fact that he 
directed his body to be buried in Switzerland, near Lake Lam- 
pierre, but it is doubtful whether the direction was carried out, 
the body lying in a vault in London for some time. 

150:26. — St. Gothard. Lamb is probably alluding to Gothard, 
Bishop of Hildesheim (960-1038), not the Alpine hermit after 
whom the famous pass is named. St. Gothard is the patron saint 
of those who travel by water. 

152:18. — Hades of Thieves: the hell to which thieves are con- 
signed. Lamb is referring to the fact that in Australia was one 
of the early penal colonies to which malefactors were deported 
from England. 

152:19-20. — Diogenes . . . with his perpetual fruitless lantern. 
Diogenes was an austere Cynic philosopher, born about 412 B.C. 
After an extravagant youth, he turned to the opposite extreme; 
lived on coarse food, dressed in coarse apparel, subjected himself 
to rigorous hardships, and actually took up his residence in a 
tub, so it was said. The story goes that, in his cynical fashion, 
he traversed the streets of Corinth with a lighted lantern in 



NOTES 275 

broad daylight. When asked the meaning of his unusual con- 
duct he replied that he was searching the city for an honest man. 

153:6-8. — young Spartans . . . born with six fingers, which 
spoils their scanning. The art of thieving was a part of the 
young Spartan's education. If, as Lamb playfully assumes, they 
are born with six fingers, they will have difficulty in marking off 
the scansion of a line of English verse, because the common 'Eng- 
lish meter is pentameter, or five stress. 

153:15. — ten Delphic voyages. The great temple of Apollo 
was at Delphi. Here the priestess Pythia sat over her tripod, 
interpreting the voice of the oracle whenever the mystic fumes 
rose from the opening in the ground beneath. People came from 
great distances to consult the oracle. Lamb says he could make 
ten voyages to Delphi to obtain answers to the questions he is 
anxious to put to Field before he could receive answers from 
Field himself, who lives at a so much greater distance. 

XV. The Praise of Chimney-sweepers 
{London Magazine, May, 1822) 

In the magazine, as originally published, the essay had a sub- 
title, " A May-Day Effusion." The actual condition of the un- 
fledged practitioners, the young sweeps, w^as becoming a national 
scandal. The extreme youth of these clergy imps, the actual sys- 
tem of peonage under which they worked, the hard labor and 
the beatings they had to undergo, the scarce-cooled chimneys 
into which they were forced — and in which they sometimes stuck 
fast — to all these things the British conscience was gradually 
becoming aroused. The wonder is that Lamb's " Effusion " re- 
flects so little of the grossness and so much of the cheeriness of 
their occupation; and yet it is but natural to see in Lamb's point 
of view that essential optimism which is reflected in most of his 
writing, and w^hicli the casual observer would think to be so 
foreign to his life. 

160:28ff. — The premature apprenticements of these tender vic- 
tims, etc. This was made the subject of parliamentary inves- 
tigation about this time. The poet Montgomery contributed to 
the stirring up of popular opinion by means of a volume w^hich 
he entitled " The Chimney-Sweeper's Friend, and Climbing-Boy's 
Album." Scott, Wordsworth, Moore, Lamb, and others contrib- 
uted verses to the volume. Lamb wrote nothing of his ow^n, but 



276 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

copied out Blake's " The Cliimney-Sweeper " from the " Songs of 
Innocence," a volume then unknown and unappreciated save 
within a verj^ narrow circle. 

161:8. — young Montagu: Edward Wortley Montagu, son of 
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, whose letters are famous in lit- 
erature, ran away from Westminster School and became a chim- 
ney-sweep. By means of a chance recognition on the street he 
was restored to his home. 

161:11. — Arundel Castle. Charles Howard, the eleventh Duke 
of Norfolk, set up in the gardens of his Sussex seat, Arundel 
Castle, the famous Arundel marbles, now in Oxford. 

161:17-18.— Venus lulled Ascanius. Cf. Virgil's " ^neid," I, 
643ff. Ascanius was the son of ^neas. Wishing to make Dido, 
Queen of Carthage, fall in love with ^neas, Venus sent Cupid to 
her in the form of Ascanius, keeping the real Ascanius with her. 

162:24.— Jem White: James White (1775-1820), a school- 
mate of Lamb's at Christ's Hospital, and one of his best friends 
up to the time of White's death. He was a great wag, full of 
inimitable drolleries of a kind that particularly appealed to 
Lamb. He foisted on the public a volume of letters purported to 
be by Falstaff, a book which Lamb was fond of praising. 

162:30-31.— the fair of St. Bartholomew. This was the great 
English fair from the time of its inception, in 1133, till its 
discontinuance in 1840. It was held on St. Bartholomew's Day, 
September 3d, at Smithfield, and was the occasion for a riotous 
good time. Lucas records that " Lamb took Wordsworth 
through its noisy mazes in 1802." 

164:2.— Rochester, John Wilmot, Earl of (1647-1680): a fa- 
vorite of Charles II, and a worthy member of " The Merry 
Monarch's " mad court. English literature since Rochester's time 
is full of his escapades, his name being a byword for intrigue 
and debauchery. 

XVI. A Dissertation on Roast Pig 

{London Magazine, September, 1822) 

There has been a great deal of discussion as to where Lamb 
got the central idea of this paper, that purporting to come from 
the Chinese manuscript. That no such manuscript ever came 
under Lamb's observation is generally agreed; but that Manning, 
who had traveled in Thibet and China, furnished the idea, is 



NOTES 277 

pretty certain, for Lamb says so in a letter to Bernard Barton. 
The editors have dug up old traditions respecting the origin of 
cooking, one in particular being a translation of Porphyry's '' Ab- 
stinence from Animal Food" (third century), in which the germ 
of this essay is contained; but the truth of the matter is that 
the idea Lamb here expounds was doubtless more or less current 
in his time. Much of the matter in this essay respecting the 
love of roast pig may be found in a letter which Lamb wrote to 
Coleridge in 1822 (Talfourd, Chapter XII) ; and other amusing 
letters in which he thanks correspondents for presents of pig 
may be found in the volumes of " Letters/' Lucas's, Ainger's, or 
Macdonald's editions. 

166:2.— my friend M. Thomas Manning (1774-1840) was 
introduced to Lamb in 1799, from which time they were fast 
friends. Many of Lamb's most entertaining letters w^ere ad- 
dressed to Manning, some of them travelling long distances to 
reach their destination, for Manning was an eastern traveler of 
note and was much abroad. He was also a linguist and mathe- 
matician, being mathematical tutor at Cambridge for a time. 

166:6.— Confucius (551?-478 b.c) : the Latinized form of the 
Chinese Kong-fu-tse, the sage and philosopher of China, the 
founder of Confucianism, which is the basis of Chinese law and 
education. His " Mundane Mutations " is a fabrication of Lamb's. 

169:20-21. — Pekin, then an inconsiderable assize town: a small 
county town — a humorous touch of mock-historic accuracy. " It 
recalls the inimitable seriousness of minute detail, by which Swift 
imparts an air of probability to his wildest inventions in * Gul- 
liver's Travels.' Assize towns are county towns in which the 
periodical sessions of the judges are held." — Hallivard and Hill. 
Lamb has the same humorous recourse in lines 29-31, where he 
speaks of the charge of the judge, the townsfolk, strangers, re- 
porters, and all present. 

170:28-29. — There should be carefully noted at this point the 
marked change between Lamb's customary narrative style and 
his more involved, highly studied style of exposition. Be pre- 
pared to analyze this difference. 

172:4. — radiant jellies — shooting stars. The interesting notes 
on this point by Hallward and Hill, and Lucas, show the wide 
extent of the collection of " cabinet curiosities " with which Lamb 
had stored his mind, " out-of-the-way humors and opinions " that 
constituted his learning. " * The heat of the fire causes the eyes 



278 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

of the pig to melt and drop out, like bright jellies, like meteors.' 
Cf. Ben Jonson's * Bartholomew Fair,' II, 1. In Donne's ' Ec- 
logues ' there is a reference to the superstition that shooting 
stars left jellies behind them where they fell; 

' As he that sees a star fall runs apace 
And finds a jelly in the place.' " — Hallward and Hill. 

"In Holland's translation of Pliny, Book XI, Chapter XII, is 
the suggestion that honey on the leaves at daybreak is * either a 
certaine sweat of the skies, or some unctuous jelly proceeding 
from the stars.' The belief is still popular in Ireland that the 
jelly-like fungoid growth on damp hillsides is caused by shoot- 
ing stars." — Lucas. 

175:20. — St. Omer's: a Jesuit college in the French city of 
that name. Many English boys of Roman Catholic families were 
sent there to be educated. Lamb's attendance upon the institu- 
tion is, of course, feigned. 

176:5. — but consider, he is a weakling — a flower. Lamb's al- 
most pathetic love of roast pig seems to have suffered a lapse 
in later life. Perhaps he was surfeited with pork, for many cor- 
respondents of the London, delighted with the essay, sent Lamb 
presents of pig. To one who sent him a present of game he wrote, 
in the Athenceum, November 30, 1833: " Time was, when Elia was 
not arrived at his taste, that he preferred to all luxuries a roasted 
Pig. But he disclaims all such green-sickness appetites in the 
future, though he hath to acknowledge the receipt of many a 
delicacy in that kind from correspondents — good, but mistaken 
men — in consequence of their erroneous supposition, that he car- 
ried up into maturer life the prepossessions of childhood." For 
the entire Athenceum article, see Lucas's edition, Volume I, 
page 343. 

XVII. A Bachelor's Complaint of the Behaviour of 
Married People 

{London Magazine, September, 1822) 

This essay, save for sundry small changes, was originally pub- 
lished in the Reflector in 1811. That the essay is no more than 
good-humored banter, in Lamb's characteristic vein, may be in- 
ferred when Lamb's other utterances upon the married state are 
collated. His innate love of children is well known, his poem 



NOTES 279 

to Thornton Hunt, liis tales for children, and his sj^mpathetic 
expressions in " Christ's Hospital " and " Dream-Children " amply 
testifying to that fact. Other reflections on marriage in general 
are found in his essay, " The Wedding" (" Essays of Elia," second 
series), in which a different temper is revealed. He begins: "1 
do not know when I have been better pleased than at being in- 
vited last week to be present at the wedding of a friend's daughter. 
I like to make one at these ceremonies, which to us old people 
give back our youth in a manner, and restore our gayest season, 
in the remembrance of our own success, or the regrets, scarcely 
less tender of our own youthful disappointments, in this point 
of settlement. On these occasions I am sure to be in good-humor 
for a week or two after, and enjoy a reflected honeymoon. Being 
without a family, I am flattered with these temporary adoptions 
into a friend's family; I feel a sort of cousin-hood, or uncle-ship, 
for the season; I am inducted into degrees of affinity; and, in 
the participated socialities of the little community, I lay down 
for a brief while my solitary bachelorship." 

180:4. — phoenixes. The phoenix is the fabled bird of Arabia, 
said to live for five hundred years. At the expiration of the period 
it makes its nest of spices, and, as on a kind of funeral pyre, 
burns itself to ashes, from which it comes forth with renewed 
life for another five-hundred-year period. 



XVIII. Modern Gallantry 
{London Magazine^ November, 1822) 

"Among the prominent characteristics of Lamb, I know not 
how it is that I have omitted to notice the peculiar emphasis 
and depth of his courtesy. This quality was in him a really 
chivalrous feeling, springing from his heart, and cherished with 
the sanctity of a duty. . . . The instinct of his heart was to 
think highly of female nature, and to pay real homage , . .to 
the sacred idea of pure and virtuous womanhood." — De Quincey. 

189:12. — Joseph Paice. Lamb's Quaker friend, Bernard Bar- 
ton, expressed a doubt as to there being a real Joseph Paice, 
supposing that Lamb had invented him to illustrate his ideal 
of a preux Chevalier of age. In a letter to Barton (1830) Lamb 
says : *' The more my character comes to be known, the less 
my veracity will come to be suspected. . . . Why, that Joseph 



280 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

Paice was as real a person as Joseph Hume, and a great deal 
pleasanter. A careful observer of life, Bernard, has no need to 
invent. Nature romances it for him." Miss Anne Manning's 
" Family Pictures," published in 1860, tells some interesting 
anecdotes of Paice, illustrative not only of his courtesy, but 
also of his philanthropy. She is authority for the statement that 
Lamb was for a time in Paice's office in Bread Street Hill before 
entering the employ of the South-Sea House in 1789 or 1790. 

189:21-22. — Though bred a Presbyterian and brought up a 
merchant, he was the finest gentleman of his time. To under- 
stand the force of the though the American student must re- 
member that the English aristocracy, members of the Church of 
England, despise dissenters and look down on tradesmen. On 
either count Joseph Paice would naturally be supposed to be 
disqualified for the title Lamb gives him of the finest gentleman 
of his time. 

190:18. — Sir Calidore: the type of courtesy, and the hero of 
the sixth book of Spenser's " Faerie Queen." The original of the 
character was Sir Philip Sidney. 

190:18-19. — Sir Tristan: a courteous, but unfaithful, knight 
of King Arthur's Round Table. Lamb hit more or less at ran- 
dom upon the name of any one of the members of Arthur's court, 
in order to signify the knightly courtesy of the order, rather 
than to mention specifically the knightly courtesy of any one. 

XIX. Old China 
{London Magazine, March, 1823) 

Under this somewhat misleading title Lamb has given us 
another essay full of self-revelation and autobiographic interest. 
None of the essays is written with more charm of manner, nor 
in a character more tenderly reminiscent. The picture of Mary 
Lamb here brought out is needed to supplement that given us 
in " Mackery End " ; while the glimpse of the early struggles 
of brother and sister given in a tender, half-humorous vein, re- 
veals the strength and beauty of the tie that united Charles and 
Mary. This was Wordsworth's favorite essay. 

196:1-2. — I am quick at detecting these summer clouds in 
Bridget. Bridget Elia is Mary Lamb. Ainger, in his " Biography," 
speaks of the mutual dependence and sympathy that existed be- 
tween these two, " her eyes often fixed on his as on * some adoring 



NOTES 281 

disciple/ " while he " in turn was always on the watch to detect 
in her face any sign of failing liealth or spirits." 

196:20. — Beaumont and Fletcher: Francis Beaumont (1584- 
1616) and John Fletcher (1579-1625), English dramatists, who 
wrote thirteen plays in collaboration, among them, '' The Knight 
of the Burning Pestle," " The Maid's Tragedy," etc. 

196:21. — Barker's, in Co vent Garden. This old book shop in 
Great Russell Street was beneath the lodgings which the Lambs 
occupied, 1817-1823. In August, 1823, they moved to Islington 
(line 25). 

197:17. — "Lady Blanche." The real name of the picture is 
" Modesty and Vanity." The print was actually acquired as 
here stated, and hung in the Lambs' rooms. Mary wrote a poem 
upon it. Poem and print may both be found in Lucas's edition, 
Volume V. 

202:10. — Croesus: the last king of Lydia, who ruled B.C. 560- 
546. Owing to his great wealth his court at Sardis was one of 
the most famous of antiquity. His name is now synonymous 

with fabulous wealth. Jew R : Nathan Meyer Rothschild 

(1777-1836), founder of the English branch of the great banking 
house. 

XX. Poor Relations 
{London Magazine, May, 1823) 

No essay better illustrates Lamb's command of forceful, epi- 
grammatic English, and his ability to summon at will from liter- 
ature and life the allusion or illustrative touch that expresses 
exactly what he wants to say. The first paragraph bristles with 
terse epigrammatic phrases, many of them hints or memories 
of quotations twisted to meet the present need; others, direct 
references, forceful because so happily chosen. 

203:9-13. — a blot on your 'scutcheon: like the bar sinister, 
in heraldry, denoting illegitimacy, a death's head at your ban- 
quet : referring to the ancient custom in Egypt of carrying through 
a banquet hall a skeleton, as a reminder to the feasters that 
they should enjoy the present, since death awaits. Agathocles' 
pot. Agathocles (b.c. 361-289) was the son of a potter, and was 
himself apprenticed to the trade. He rose, however, to be tyrant 
of Sicily. In his position of power the memory of his lowly 
trade must have affected him with irritation akin to that pro- 
22 



282 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

duced by the presence of a poor relation, a Mordecai in your 
gate. See Esther, v, 9-13. a Lazarus at your door. See Luke, 
xvi, 19-21. a lion ... a frog ... a fly ... a mote. See re- 
spectively I Kings, xiii, 24; Exodus, viii, 2-6; Ecclesiastes, x, 1; 
Matthew, vii, 3. 

206:11.— Richard Amlet. In Vanbrugh's comedy "The Con- 
federacy" (1705), Dick Amlet is a gambler who affects high 
society. He is perpetually being embarrassed, however, by the 
attentions of his mother, who is a vulgar tradeswoman (His 
stars are perpetually crossed by the malignant maternity, etc. ) . 

207:18. — Nessian venom. Hercules died from the effects of 
the poisoned blood of the Centaur, Nessus, in which the sacrificial 
garment he wore had been steeped. 

207:19.— Latimer, Hugh, Bishop of Worcester (1490-1555): 
a martyr of the English Protestant Church, burned at Oxford. 
He was a sizar while at Cambridge. 

207:20.— Hooker, Richard (1553-1600), the famous English 
divine, was a servitor while at Oxford. 

210:19-20.— young Grotiuses. Hugo Grotius (1583-1645), a 
Dutch jurist, laid the foundations of international law. The 
reference here is, doubtless, to his best -known work, " De Jure 
Belli et Pacis " (Concerning the Law of War and Peace). 

XXI. The Old Margate Hoy 
{London Magazine, July, 1823) 

With no attempt to mystify or deceive, Lamb in this essay 
reveals himself in all candor as one who detested the water, a 
land-lover, a city man devoted to *^ the sweet security of streets." 
It will be remembered that he crossed the channel but once, and 
then for only a fleeting visit to the Continent. Loving the scenes 
of his childhood and the city of his birth, he was content seldom 
to wander far, " his household gods planting a terrible fixed foot, 
and not being rooted up without blood " ; and the sea could not, 
in the very nature of things, appeal strongly to such an one. 

212:13. — Margate: a watering place near the mouth of the 
Thames, in Kent. 

212:18. — Hoy: an old-fashioned coasting vessel, single-masted, 
sloop-rigged. 

213:7. — a great sea-chimera. Since the chimera of mythology 
was a fire-breathing monster, the fitness of Lamb's comparison 



NOTES 283 

will readily be appreciated. Note the force of the verbs coined 
from nouns, chimneying and furnacing. 

213:8. — fire-god . . . Scamander. When the Scamander River 
rose to overcome Achilles, Vulcan, the god of fire, was sent to 
beat the river back with flames. ("Iliad," XX-XXI.) 

213:24-25.— like another Ariel. See "The Tempest," I, ii, 
196-198. Ariel, an airy spirit, was servant to Prospero, doing 
his bidding with unimagined speed. 

216:4. — Colossus at Rhodes: one of the seven wonders of the 
world. A huge statue whose legs bestrode the entrance to the har- 
bor at Rhodes. 

219:8. — Juan Fernandez: an island in the Pacific upon which 
Alexander Selkirk, the original of " Robinson Crusoe," was cast 
away. 

219:28-29. — Cinq Port: the general name given the five Eng- 
lish Channel ports: Hastings, Romney, Hythe, Dover, and Sand- 
wich. 

220:16. — Amphitrites. Amphitrite, a nereid, was the wife of 
Neptune, the god of the sea. 

XXII. Blakesmooe in H shire 

{London Magazine, September, 1824) 

Under the name of Blakesmoor, Lamb writes of Blakes- 
ware in Hertfordshire, the manor house of the Plumer family, 
over which his grandmother Field presided as housekeeper. 
Other references to this much-loved place are to be found in 
" Dream-Children," " Mrs. Leicester's School," " Rosamund Gray," 
and in numbers of Lamb's letters. The house was pulled down 
about 1822. 

225:2. — Ovid: Publius Ovidius Naso (b.c. 43-a.d. 18), cele- 
brated Roman poet. He combined in a poetical work under the 
name of " Metamorphoses " the legends that involved miraculous 
transformations. His subjects were long favorites with tapestry 
weavers. Among them are Actaeon ( line 3 ) , who beheld Diana 
( line 4 ) , the goddess of the hunt, bathing with her nymphs about 
her. Diana caused Acetseon to be turned into a stag. He was 
pursued by fifty hounds and torn to pieces. 

225:5-6. — Dan Phoebus (Apollo), the god of music, was chal- 
lenged to a musical contest by Marsyas ( line 6 ) , who had found 
the magic flute of Minerva. The loser of the contest was to be 



284 SELECTED ESSAYS OF LAMB 

flayed alive by the winner. Lamb refers to the culinary coolness 
of Phoebus Apollo deliberately divesting Marsyas of his skin, eel- 
fashion. 

225:7-8. — in which old Mrs. Battle died. See the essay, "Mrs. 
Battle's Opinions on Whist." The identity of Mrs. Battle has 
never been fully established; but some of the editors, basing their 
opinion upon this reference, have identified her with the Pliuner 
family. 

227:1-2. — Mowbray's or De Clifford's: nobles of rank and pedi- 
gree. Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk, was banished by 
Richard 11. De Clifford, founder of the family of that name, 
was grandfather of Jane Clifford, " Fair Rosamond." See note 
on page 246. 

229:9. — Nero (a.d. 37-68): the most heartless of the Roman 
emperors. 

229:10. — Galba (b.c. 3- a.d. 69): Nero's successor, noted for 
his avarice and severity. 

229:27.— Pan: the Greek god of fields and flocks, and Syl- 
vanus: the Roman god of fields and forests. 

XXIII. The Superannuated Man 
{London Magazine, May, 1825) 

In connection with this essay note carefully that portion of 
Lamb's life treated in the Introduction, pp. xxviii-xxix, under 
the head '* The Superannuated Man." Superannuated: retired 
from active service on account of age or incapacity. 

233:1. — my native fields of Hertfordshire. Lamb was born in 
London; but most of his earliest holidays were passed at Blakes- 
ware in Hertfordshire. 

235:11-12. — Boldero, Merry weather, Bosanquet, and Lacy: all 
fictitious names. The East India Company was, moreover, a cor- 
poration, not a partnership. 

235:18. — Bastile: the famous old castle-prison in Paris, de- 
stroyed during the French Revolution. 

238:14.— Gresham, Sir Thomas (1519-1579): founder of the 
Royal Exchange, the merchant prince of his time. Whittington, 
Richard, more commonly Dick (1358?-1423) : famous as Lord 
Mayor of London. 

238:22. — Aquinas, St. Thomas (1225?-1274) : a famous Italian 
theologian. His published works numbered seventeen folios. 



NOTES 285 

238:24-25. — A fortnight has passed, etc. As originally pub- 
lished in the London, the essay was printed in two parts. Part II 
began with these words, prefaced by the second of the mottoes 
printed at the beginning of the essay. 

238:31. — Carthusian. This monastic order, founded in 108G, 
was bound to the use of the poorest clothing, the most meagre 
fare, and to a life of unbroken solitude. 

239:17.— Elgin Marbles. Lord Elgin brought to England in 
1802 some of the best fragments of Greek sculpture ever found, 
chiefly the work of Phidias from the Parthenon at Athens. These 
are familiarly known as the Elgin Marbles. They are now in the 
British Museum, having been bought by the government in 18 IG. 

239:31. — Black Monday: a name given to Easter Monday in 
1360. Edward III was encamped before Paris. The day came 
on dark with rain and fog, and so cold that many of the army 
perished. It is " Black Monday " for Lamb because it begins 
another week of the detested drudgery. 



(1) 



A NEW AND UNIQUE VOLUME. 

> — _ — ~^'^^*^'^*^ 

The Book of the Short Story. 

Edited by Alexander Jessup, Editor of Little 
French Masterpieces, etc., and Henry Seidel 
Canby, Instructor in Yale University. i2mo. Cloth, 
$i.ia 

For the Teacher of English. 
For the Student of Literature. 
For the Story Writer. 
For the Story Reader. 

The purpose of this volume is to give, both by exposition anc 
example, a view of the Short Story from the earliest times to the 
close of the 19th century. In addition to the eighteen representa- 
tive tales that the volume contains, there is a general introduction, 
and notes, before each story. There are also lists of the principal 
Short Story collections of the world^s literature. It is believed that 
this is the first adequate attempt to present a comprehensive and 
expert review of the Short Story within the scope of a single 
volume. While the book is designed primarily for educational 
purposes, it will be found to possess a lively interest for the general 
reader. 

Some of the writers whose short stories appear are : 

Sir Walter Scott. Honors de Balzac 

Washington Irving. Nathaniel Hawthorne. 

Daniel Defoe. Robert Louis Stevenson. 

Cervantes. Edgar Allan Poe. 

Voltaire. Rudyard Kipling. 

D. APPLETON and company, new YORK, 



NEW IN PLAN-NEW IN METHOD 

Caesar's First Campaign 

A Beginner's Latin Book. By William A. 
Jenner and Henry E. Wilson, of the Boys' 
High School, Brooklyn, New York. Illustrated. 
i2mo, Cloth, $1.00. 

The authors of this book have endeavored to solve the 
problem of making first-year work interesting and valuable 
in itself, believing that the work of memorizing forms will be 
more effectively done when these forms are set in relations 
of recognized utility. 

They have followed the most advanced pedagogical opinion 
in recognizing the necessity of basing the introductory work 
upon a connected narrative that shall appeal not only to the 
beginner's natural love of a story, but also to his rudimentary 
notions of geography and history. This connected narrative 
they find in Caesar's story of the Helvetian War, thus gaining 
the palpable advantage of enabling the pupil to enter upon 
his second year's work with a practical experience in reading 
Caesar and with twenty-nine chapters already read. 

The authors have attempted to emphasize the story fea- 
tures of Caesar's narrative. Resort has been had to bits of 
authentic biography, and aptly chosen and appropriately placed 
illustrations afford glimpses of the life and character of Caesar. 
The work of illumination has been further carried on by the 
introduction of artistic pen-and-ink sketches portraying the 
scenes of the great migratory movement of the Swiss and 
the resulting campaign. 

Those words occurring most frequently in Caesar have by 
various devices been made the subject of special study and 
attention. Similarly, special emphasis is laid upon those 
syntactical constructions known by actual count to occur 
most frequently in Caesar. 

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 

NEW YORK CHICAGO 

455e 



CO I J=^7 1910 



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